Ascension of the Scorpion Sorcerer
by darkangelmanz
Summary: The continuation of Vorlon666's work. After the death of his Godfather, Harry Potter, after making some appalling discoveries, cuts all ties to his previous allies and sets on his own dark course to win the war.
1. Prologue

**Title:** **Ascension of the Scorpion Sorcerer**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** I would like to thank any future reviewers for their input.

_Once long ago, before there was such a thing as time, the world was shrouded in darkness. Then came the splendour of light bringing life and love to the world and the lord of darkness retreated deep into the shadows of the earth, plotting his return to power by banishing light for ever._

_But precious light is protected; it is harboured in the souls of Unicorns, the most mystical of all creatures. There are those who believe that only the purest of hearts can find the Unicorns. They believe in their innocence that only goodness should exist in the world. In time they will learn that there can be no good without evil … no love without hate… no heaven without hell… and no light without darkness._

_The harmony of the Universe depends upon an eternal balance. Out of that struggle to maintain this balance comes the birth of Legends._

**Prologue**

5000 years ago at the scorpion temple of Asek Mer Kan in ancient SUMERIA

Eridu and Kesh, high priests of the scorpion temple, were discussing the war effort and they were not happy with the results so far. They were high priest mages from the first Kuric. The Kuric were Magic Sorcerers to the high Kings court.

Eridu said, "The war is not going well for us, I am not sure what else we should do, it looks like we will loose this war because that idiot king and his concubine slut failed to listen to our warnings."

Kesh turned around facing the whole congregation and replied, "The king has failed us brothers, but make no mistake, Tiamat's teachings will not die with us, she will rise again. We will make sure of that. "Kesh was referring to the ancient dark magic of Tiamat – Leviathan, goddess to the underworld realm. She is the ancient Sumerian Goddess of the primeval depths.

Kesh continued, "Her spirit and knowledge will live on in our teachings. We must now put all of our efforts into leaving our beautiful home. They may have won this battle but they have not won the war against our kind brothers, I promise you that."

Kesh warily sat back down while Eridu briefly outlined what they were going to do. Kesh was now remembering all he had learned as a young initiate about the Goddess Tiamat. Kesh recalled being told that she was the Goddess who took the form of a dragon and swam in the primal waters of the nether world. Tiamat, who warred on the gods, and spawned the dark realm's magic to brood dragons; sphinxes, scorpion-men and other demons and monsters for her army. She waged war on the unfair Gods. In the end, Marduk her brother betrayed her and slew her. He defeated her with dark magic and powerful rituals. Marduk managed to split her in two, and cast one half of Tiamat into the sky to serve the heavens and the other he cast down to the nether world. Although she was slain, she was not destroyed. Half of her soul was left intact in the nether realm. She vowed revenge on her brother and would wait, and when the time was right and the fates blessed her again, she would choose her champion to fight for her salvation. She will redeem herself in the eyes of the Gods so that she may become whole again.

Eridu said, "My brothers, I was granted a vision from the great goddess Tiamat. I have foreseen the destruction of the great city of Sumer within 3 moons."

Seeing that everyone was waiting for him to continue he said, "Our primary duty is to preserve the ancient knowledge and make sure that our clan is not destroyed. To that end the elders have already decided where we will go; we must hurry and gather all of our records. Nothing must remain for the enemy. The enemy must never learn of the high snake language. I have foreseen the destruction of our temples in Sumer, but we will continue. Our future heirs will learn of the sacred magic and continue our quest to gain knowledge of the dark realm."

With their fate hanging over their heads, and the survival of their sect at stake, the high priest recorded and stored all of their sacred knowledge bestowed to them by Tiamat in special stone containers. A black scorpion mark, the same as the one tattooed on their forehead, was printed on each tablet thus indicating property of the high priest. The mark ensured that only the priest and their descendent schooled in the language of the high snake would access the knowledge recorded on the tablets. They further protected this knowledge with ancient blood and ritual spell magic. Thus began the book of "Saaassseeek." The book written in high parseltongue roughly translates to battle magic of Tiamat the Goddess.

In time like all empires, the ancient Sumerian empire fell as foreseen by the priest. With the advancing army coming, the high priests of the main capital of Sumer, having packed over a month ago, took to their camel caravan and took all of their belongings and knowledge of magic and escaped into the night.

They eventually retreated to a place along a great river, which would later be called the Nile. They high priest eventually founded another temple in what is know today as the ancient site of Hamunaptra. Hamunaptra would later be known as the ancient city of the dead. Over time, they melded with the people of the region and they reformed themselves to the beliefs of their subject and the lore's of the time. However, they remained true to their past and simply started a new cult following. They eventually became an essential part of the great Egyptian Empire

In time, the ancient priest of Sumeria became the high priest to the Egyptian Pharaoh's. The great Egyptian empire would become one of the greatest to have ever risen in human history. Their great empire lasted up until circa 1712-30 BC when the Assyrians and then the Romans invaded Egypt and the ancient ritual sites. The ancient city of the dead, Hamunaptra had become a seat of power to the ancient Pharaohs. They protected and nourished the aspirations of the priest in exchange for their knowledge and power. The temple priest would help keep and make prosperous the ancient Egyptian empire together for no less than 2500 years.

The last of the high temple priest Horek being a seer, had foreseen the fall of Mighty Egypt and decided to make certain that none of their ancient magic would pass to the Assyrian infidels and bound all of their teachings into a sarcophagus in the shape of the mightiest priest of their order Anubis who lived 1500 years ago during the rise of the first Pharaoh dynasty. They made sure that only a parseltongue and one with a just soul who neither favoured dark or light magic, but instead favoured a balance of the two would be able to open the sarcophagus with the help of a bonded temple cobra.

The temple priests specifically created these cobras and imbued them with very ancient and powerful magic. The cobras were created from pure magic. They made the specimens have extremely lethal venom that caused victims to dry up like a mummy in seconds. They were also given telepathic abilities to allow them to bond to a sorcerer priest and would help them develop as powerful occlumens and legilimens. The temple snakes could also help the sorcerer learn high parseltongue. High parseltongue was different from of normal parseltongue. It was much more refined and older than contemporary parseltongue. The high priest needed to know high parseltongue so that they could use the ancient battle language of Tiamat. The high priest imbued the temple snakes with many other abilities. The snakes could also read all magical auras and teach sorcerers how to reach their magical cores and read magical auras. One could recognize these cobras by their indigo colouring and deep sapphire blue eyes.

Horek made sure that before the invasion came, all of their teachings were to be put in the sarcophagus. With the help of shrinking charms, they put their entire tome in and sealed the sarcophagus with their most powerful charms and wards. A minimum of 4 temple cobras were put in a special stasis field and laid in special obsidian pots to guard the tomb. The tomb was created 50 km north of Hamunaptra. They then summoned a powerful desert storm to burry the tomb. The next day all of the temple sorcerers went with the defending Egyptian army and cast magic that created giant scorpions, hydras, dragons, fire demons … they helped stave off victory by the Assyrians for a month, but in the end their numbers were too great and the prophesy came to pass, and in their final act, the sorcerers killed themselves instead of being captured and have their knowledge be extracted from them. The ancient magic would lay dormant for a very long time.

_**September 17, 1996 A.D Egypt**_

Cyrus Archaeology Corp. Gander Cyrus was an archaeologist, miner and wizard extraordinaire along with his young partner Xoran Zabini who was also a wizard, and apprentice to the former. They were helping set up camp 48 km north of the ancient temple of Hamunaptra. They had been exploring the ancient Valley of the Kings with a muggle archaeological dig from _Oxford U.K_. They had been hired for their expertise of the terrain and their knowledge of the area. Gander had made it his life to know all there is to know about the ancient civilizations of the Middle East.

These civilizations are often regarded as the birthplace of muggle and wizard civilization alike. Over the years Gander thought he had uncovered many profitable digs both muggle and wizard kind. Some tomes had revealed ancient magic, which was lost in antiquity; many of them included ancient warding charms, booby traps, both dark and light.

In fact, one of these particular tomes made him quite wealthy; he had found a tome on ancient wards that were nearly impossible to break. He had come into contact with a goblin by the name of Zarock, high minister of securities for all Gringotts banks. After a quick meeting and an explanation of what Cyrus had in his procession, he could tell that Zarock was very interested in acquiring this particular tome with the express condition that it never be copied on paper and that Goblins would be the only ones with a copy of this particular tome. He can only imagine that wizard money is more secure then it's ever been. After seeing the offer from Zarock, Gander had readily agreed to the deal. Since that little encounter, his worries about securing a living were over.

After the deal, he had taken a well-deserved vacation and travelled to other countries, he soon grew very bored of the posh lifestyle. If nothing else Gander Cyrus was very honest with himself and he felt that his real home was Egypt.

He felt this way for several reasons: he loved the area, he was a sand creature if there ever was one, he loved the desert sunset and sunrise, he loved the culture and its people, he loved the ancient feel of the place, finally he liked the feel of power that the area gave off, he just could not put his finger on it but he always felt that the next great discovery lay within his reach. Gander loved to acquire knowledge just for the sake of knowledge itself on both ancient Egyptian muggles and their wizard counterparts. Since that time he had founded his little company and spent all of his time on digs.

Gander turned around and said, "Hey Xoran don't forget to put the cold repelling charms. It gets mighty frosty at night in these deserts! "

Now Gander thought, here was his young partner. Xoran was an enigma onto himself. He was 17 years old, and was about 6'-2". He had long jet-black hair, with amazingly deep blue eyes, square jawed, and sported a very nice tan. In all fairness, he had a very handsome face and a very athletic physic. Apparently, he had been attending Bauxbatton Wizarding School, but left In the middle of his last term before finishing his NEWT.

He seemed very reserved and did not talk much. In talking with him, he found out that his relatives were an old pure-blooded wizarding family. They were not fanatics about the purity of their blood or anything, but they made sure that they did not marry any muggles. Marrying muggle born witches or wizard did not seem to be a big taboo as long as they were of high standings in both money and intellectual capacity. Something about family honour, pride and tradition, and not wanting to have their children bereft of the power and beauty of magic.

According to Xoran, he had had met a beautiful French witch, and had fallen in love with her. One thing led to another and he recently found out that that his girlfriend was pregnant with his child. His family had not been impressed to say the least. He and his family had gotten into a big row and they had disowned him, his twin sister Xiana had tried to act as a mediator with the family, but apparently, his father had made it quite clear that he would not support this muggle born witch and their child. Xoran's father felt that she did not meet family approval. According to his father's contacts at the French ministry, she was not particularly well off.

Xoran had tried to argue, that she more than met all of the Zabini family requirements except for not being well off, and told his father that these particular criteria had never been one of the conditions for marrying into the Zabini family. His father had told him that he thought that his future wife had trapped him. She had simply seen that he would one day be the heir of a rich and influential family and that she was a gold digger. He had been enraged with his family and had in turn told his father that for the exception of his twin sister, that he disowned the Zabini family and that they would be dead to him, and to never try to contact him ever again.

Apparently there was another set of younger twins Blaise and Brianna who were 11 months younger than they were; they had both sided with their father, probably under pressure. Apparently, Blaise went to Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry in Scotland. His younger sister Brianna went to Durmstrang in Russia. Gander had met young Xoran at the Golden Tea Leaf. It was a popular wizarding watering hole for the locals in Cairo. Gander had been looking for someone to help him catalogue his findings and searches. He was to follow up on leads and do other grunts work, like setting camp and such. Gander was glad to have found Xoran for he was quiet, intelligent, willing to learn and a hard worker. Gander looked at the sun and figured they had to set camp fairly quickly.

Gander said, "Hey, Xoran."

"Yes sir!"

Gander replied, "We are going to turn in for the night and tomorrow we'll scout ahead to see if there's anything for the muggles to cut their teeth into."

Gander looking over the horizon noticed a massive black cloud in the distance. It appeared to be moving their way. Judging by the distance it would probably hit them somewhere around 11:00 pm tonight. Gander though this storm is going to be a dinger.

For his part, Xoran made sure that the telescopic breathing pole in the tent was erected. If the storm buried them, they wouldn't suffocate overnight. Xoran bellowed, "I'll go and check to make sure that all the equipment is tied down." Wizard or not Xoran thought, there are no charms that anyone knew that could withstand the fury of a full-blown desert storm.

The next morning, after digging themselves and their equipment out of the sand and making sure that the muggles were o.k. they made up a quick breakfast of eggs and sausage.

Gander said, "When we clean up we'll head up north for a bit and take some topography readings. We will correlate these with the Valley of the Kings coordinates."

"There is a rumour passed on by the locals of some ancient Egyptian priest Shrine somewhere around here. Xoran I'll pack the camel with a day's supply in case we find something and decide to stay over night. "

With a plan agreed on, both men started on their way up north. At about 3 kilometres north, Gander said, "Let's stop here and get our bearings."

Gander took out his latest muggle binoculars with laser range finder. Gander loved his muggle toys. His new binoculars were a really cool piece of muggle technology. He started a scan from 9 o'clock to 12 and saw nothing, he then started a scan from 12 o'clock to 3 and at about 1 he noticed something jutting out of the ground, it looked like a pincer of sorts and looked to be obsidian black.

To make sure he was not looking at a mirage, he gave the binoculars to Xoran and asked him to do a scan from 12-3 o'clock. He picked up the binoculars and started to scan, at 1 o'clock he said he saw some black thing sticking out of the sand that looked like obsidian?

Gander said, "All right lets head towards it and see what we can find."

As they got closer to the object jutting out of the sand, Gander got his foe glass and his dark arts detectors out. The foe glass registered nothing, but the dark arts detector started spinning wildly. Hum, Gander though. As they got nearer to the protrusion, it looked like a claw of some sort and looked to be made of obsidian.

Gander got a queasy feeling in his gut, but decided to excavate the site anyway, he told Xoran to start using banishing charms and half power _reducto's_ to clear the hard sand stone deposits, as they were banishing and clearing sand, they began to make out the outline of the protrusion. It looked like a gargoyle of some sort, but it had the pincer, skin, and tail of a scorpion but the body of a man. The gargoyle was sitting in an alcove in between twisted obsidian pillars, the pillars themselves had ancient runes that were comprise of Egyptian hieroglyph and some other ancient language that resembled something like ancient Sumerian?

Gander did not recognize this particular temple and was certain that they were onto something completely different here. He said, "All right, lest keep clearing until we see some kind of entrance."

As they were clearing the doors, they noticed more Hieroglyphs of creatures, which were not common to Egyptian mythology. There were half scorpion men, men with Jackal heads, Nephelems, Hydras, Dragons, and other creatures he had never seen!

As they got the door cleared, they noticed a squiggly kind of writing on the door at eye level. If this was a language, it was one that none of them recognized. They completed a magical scan of the doors and found that there were wards that they did not immediately recognize either. Looking at their low power levels, Gander concluded that they must have degraded due to their age. Of course, having been subjected to the sand storm from the previous night, the wards would have weakened in a major way.

Time was of the essence since these wards could very well regenerate in time. They decided that since they were greatly weakened, they might have a chance at taking them down. An hour later and down to their last charms the wards finally came down.

Gander speaking to Xoran said, "This was interesting, the last anti-ward charm I used was very old and came from an ancient tome that I no longer possess, had I not studied this tome we would never have broken through these wards."

Gander said, "Let's have our wands at the ready and be prepared for anything."

Gander cast _Alohamora_ on the door, they waited a second as if the door sat there thinking and suddenly a click was heard, Gander rotated a 6-inch knob on the door in a clockwise manner until it stopped. He then heard the knob pop back into place 180 degrees from its starting position. There was a whooshing sound and very stale air came rushing out of the door.

At this time Gander was on high alert, his very fibre told him to be very cautious. He told Xoran to stay outside and guard the doors, but for the first time since they had known each other Xoran said

"No way am I going to stay here when an important archaeological discovery is about to take place under my very nose!"

Gander looked at the youth, and noticed a fire there, maybe he wanted to get in on the find and get a big payout to show up his family and take care of his future wife and kid? He had never seen this eagerness in his your protégé before.

Gander replied, "All right, but you stay at my back and cover my rear."

"O.k.", replied Xoran.

They fully opened the door and proceeded inside the tomb. Thank god they had the 10 o'clock sun at their back; it provided enough light to highlight the inside of the tomb. The first thing they noticed was a sarcophagus set on a three-foot pedestal.

The sarcophagus itself was obsidian black but it also had silver, gold and platinum inlays of the same creatures that they had noticed on the front doors. There seemed to be 3 clay pots spread out at strategic corners of the tomb they were about 3 feet in diameter and were also made of obsidian. They didn't notice the 4th pot residing behind the opened chamber door? Gander also noticed 8 torches set at equidistance around the octagonal chamber.

Xoran cast _Adlevo-Lampas_ and the torches came to life. They could now see that the walls of the chamber had that same squiggly writing all around the chamber as they had seen on the front door. They looked to be arranged in paragraphs and chapters. He had never seen this language before and it truly intrigued him.

This chamber certainly has a story to tell Gander thought to himself. He turned around, examined the sarcophagus, and started casting some spells to determine if there were any curses, jinxes, or wards put on the coffin. Sure enough, there were loads of protective spells for keeping an errand wizard from getting into this little beauty.

He decided he would start with a couple of curse breaker's and anti ward spells. In the mean time he told his apprentice to go start looking at the writings on the wall and cast some revealing spells to see if there are any hidden messages or instructions. Unknown to either of them, the pot behind the tomb door began to glow a light blue colour and then was gone, suddenly a 4 foot indigo temple snake slowly slithered out and began to quickly flick its tongue and feel for scents.

It spotted a scent by the adjacent wall and began to slither to its intended target, Gander was too absorbed in his study of the sarcophagus to notice the scaly menace slithering away. Suddenly there was a loud hiss and Xoran screamed. Gander whipped his wand and jumped on the sarcophagus to gain a high-ground advantage and quickly located the cause of Xoran Screams, he saw the snake and cast _Immobilus- Tempest_ at the snake, which instantly froze it in place. What happened next would stay in Ganders consciousness for a very long time.

Xoran started to go into convulsions, he was already frothing at the mouth, this went on for at least 30 seconds then Xoran started to shrivel up and his skin began to turn into a greyish colour. His eyes rolled over until only the whites of his eyes were showing, than in one final inhuman scream, he toppled over and looked completely parched. He looked like he had been mummified for thousands of years.

Gander suddenly leaned over the coffin and threw up. After a while, his brain started kicking back into high gear and concluded that the snake must have come from one of those Obsidian pots. He decided to cast an immobilizing stasis spell on the remaining pots to make sure he wasn't going to be attacked. He briefly considered killing them, but upon closer inspection, he thought that they might be the same temple snakes that he had read about in one of his ancient tomes.

If they were then they could fetch a handsome return. It was obvious that they were magical. The ancient tome had mentioned that they would only respond to a parseltongue. Gander felt very responsible for what just happened to Xoran. He never bothered going to help him. He knew that Xoran's condition was permanent.

He was glad that he had made the lad take a hefty life insurance. His pregnant girlfriend would have enough money to have all of her needs met. To sweeten the pot, he would make sure that all the proceeds from the temple snake sales would go to her account. It was only fitting as one of these snakes had taken Xoran's life.

Well he has many things to do now, he needed to conjure better restraining containers for the snakes, he went to see how many snakes there were, out of 4 pots, 3 had snakes, he stepped outside, took out his wand and cast _Aggero-Vitreus_ a 3 ft diameter crystal pot was formed, he repeated this another three times and went back and picked the snakes and put them in their new containers.

He then went back and used a cutting charm to cut 3 inches of base below the coffin. There seemed to be a permanent sticking charm to the base itself. Next, he cast a charm to copy all of the writings on the wall. Pointing his wand on the first wall, he cast _Scribere-Comperio_. Once this was done, he sealed the wall writings in obsidian stone jars. Gander then moved both the coffin and Xoran out of there. He created a portkey and transported everything back to his house in Cairo.

Once he had secured his charge he went back to the site and resealed the tomb. He then used banishing charms to reseal the whole thing with sand. Once the tomb was completely encased in sand, he went back to the muggle campsite, and told them that he had received a call concerning a family emergency and needed to take his leave.

This was not a lie. The death of Xoran would hit him in the coming weeks. By the time he was done with all of his administrative duties it was nearly 9:00 pm. He went back to his home in Cairo, took a long hot shower and had himself some pasta and some firewiskey. He decided that he needed to let his mind rest for tonight, and he would think about what needed to be done the next morning.

Gander woke early the following morning. Overnight, he had decided that he would send Xoran's body back to his parents via a designated portkey location. He would keep the tomb findings to see if he could break into the coffin. If after a period of 6 weeks he was unable to break in, he would sell the whole kit to a dark arts merchant. He would have to be very careful, as Egypt had a specialized secret Auror department specifically dedicated to tracking and confiscating any Egyptian dark arts find.

He had some friends in England who had contact in the U.K in Knockturn Alley, and they would help him get into contact with a dark arts and a magical pets secret buyer there. Until then, he would devote all of his resources and time to finding a way into the sarcophagus. He went downstairs and into his basement and made sure that all of his magical anti detection wards were intact and began his work.


	2. Chapter 1 Anger

_**Chapter 1 **_

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 

_**Sunday, June 22, 1997**_

Harry had just woken up early this morning in 5th year Gryffindor floor. He wanted to finish the last of his packing and take one more walk around the lake before taking the train to Hogsmeade with the rest of his friends. According to Dumbledore, he had to go back to the Dursleys to strengthen the ancient blood magic that his mother had given him on that fateful Halloween night.

Although he understood why he had to go there, he sure as hell was not looking forward to it. Since the events at the department of mysteries, he had been grieving for the loss of his Godfather Sirius Black. Every time he though of those events he thought that his heart would explode and never be whole again.

On that night he had lost the only person, he truly considered family. Every time he thought of Sirius and all of the injustices he had suffered, his blood began to boil. Sirius had been thrown in Azkaban without being given any trial. He then overcame 13 years of the worst hell that anybody could endure, and managed to escape to be with Harry.

Once he was freed, Sirius then had to stay on the run and endure, eating out of garbage dumps, and sleep in caves. He avoided the ministry mafia, and suffered all of these hardships so he could be close to his godson, and his reward for all of this love and devotion had been to meet his end behind the veil of death. To top it off, that insane bitch of a cousin had killed him.

'God, there just wasn't any justice in this fucking world,' he thought. That little voice in the back of his head told him to make his own justice.

He kept going over the events in his head to see how he could have done things different. He had first put all of the blame on himself, he thought that if he had somehow mastered occlumency or had used the mirror or had listened to Hermione, then the events at the DOM would not have happened. Sirius would be alive. But no, he had to rush where angels feared to tread. He had not listened, had not planned, or logically analyzed his vision. Due to his lack of planning Sirius paid the ultimate price. He had also gotten his best friends mixed up in the mess and some of them had been badly hurt because of it. Harry now thought more than ever how lucky they had been to go up against some of the worst known death eaters and still be alive to talk about it. Of course, Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix showing up in the nick of time had certainly kept events from getting any worse.

Thinking of Sirius again, fresh tears flowed down his cheeks. He had dreamed up so many plans in his head on how he and Sirius would live together and deep down he relished the thought that finally he had someone, a godfather who really seemed to look out for his interest and seemed to love him for who he was. He was James and Lily Potters son, not the bloody-boy-who-lived.

He felt that it was only a matter of time before Sirius would be cleared of the crimes against his parents. Hell, a proper trial is all it would take. He had wanted so much to go live with Sirius and finally be rid of the hateful Dursleys. They had never loved him and had treated him as their house slave since he was able to walk. Oh, how he wished that somehow his parents, hell anybody could have comeback and taken him away from those assholes. He remembered when he was 7; he would lie on his cot, crying himself to sleep in that damn cupboard. They had always excluded him from everything. They always favoured his cousin and sneered at him. They constantly called him Freak. He was always given less of everything. No Christmas toys, no birthday presents, less food, being made to do all of the chores, and given no love what so ever.

Just thinking about it brought him into a blinding rage!

Suddenly a whitish aura tainted with green surrounded Harry. Harry seemed to notice the magic emanating off of him, and immediately took deep calming breath to subdue and rescind his magic back into himself. Although no accidental magic occurred, his friends needless to say noticed the display and he could tell that they were apprehensive at the felt the need to get away from them and get himself to the train station. At the same time!

Ron and the rest of the 5th years suddenly heard the crackling of static electricity filling the air, as all of their hairs were suddenly standing on end, it felt like there was a 1000 ants crawling on their skin. They all looked at Harry and saw the aura of magic surrounding him, and they all felt fear in their hearts.

They could just feel the magic leaking out of Harry. Ron was thinking, what the hell has set him off again he wondered? Looking at the aura of magic surrounding Harry, Ron felt jealous. He has always known from the time he had first met Harry that he had the potential one day to become a very powerful wizard.

This little incident reminded him once more of the inadequacies between himself and Harry. Not to put it too bluntly but he was getting really tired of being second best to him. He had no doubt that Harry would be a more powerful wizard then himself and deep down that really irked him off. He realized that if he was to ever come into his own, he had to get away from under Harry's shadow. In the beginning, it had been really cool, to be around Harry, as his fame had helped him climb from under his brothers shadow to some extent, and he was grateful for that.

It just seemed that everything sensational happened to Harry. He had become the youngest seeker in 100 years. He had defeated Quirrel and Voldemort in their first year. He had slain a 60-foot basilisk in the chamber of secrets in their second year. In their fourth year, he had won the Triwizard championship. Yah granted he had not expected nor wanted any of these things to happen to him, but no matter what the end result was that he had become even more famous. These events had only increased the mystical aura concerning the boy-who-lived. Of course Hermione and he had a significant role to play where his successes were concerned but they never got the same fame or attention that he received.

This year Hermione and he had been asked to keep a close eye on Harry. They had sworn an oath to the order and Dumbledore himself that they would keep close to Harry and report any unusual behaviour or anything else they deemed worthy to him or the order. They had been given a special pass to his office and could drop in at anytime to forward information. That was the price to be paid to be included in some fashion in the Order of the Phoenix. He kind of liked the fact that they had trusted Hermione and him above Harry to be allowed early entry into the Order. They were asked to participate late last June.

They had been very careful around him, to not let on that they were keeping tabs on him. Dumbledore had his reasons for doing this and who was he to question the greatest wizard of the age. God forbid however if Harry ever found out.

He would feel so betrayed that it would damage their friendship beyond repair. He just had to be very careful. He often wondered what he would do if he were asked to turn his back on Harry if the order felt that he was dangerous somehow? He rationalized that if it worked to his advantage he probably would. Hell, they were no longer little kids, they were in a war now, and wars always involved tactical sacrifices. Harry exiting the portrait brought him out of his reverie. Well he would meet him back at the train station he thought.

Neville, who was looking at Harry, had begun to understand that maybe there was a reason why the dark lord feared Harry. He only wished that he could have some of that raw power. He would always be grateful to Harry for what he had done for him. Before the year had started, he had been just as underrated as ever. Everyone looked at him as some kind of buffoon, barely above squib level so they thought.

Harry was not like that, he never looked down on people. He had taken a lot of his personal time to properly teach him and the DA spells that they would need to fight death eaters. He never lost his patience. Neville found it so easy to learn from Harry. To date, Harry had proven himself the best teacher of all besides Lupin. His own skills in DADA had blossomed. He had finally proven to himself that he too had the makings to become a good wizard.

During the battle at DOM, it had been Harry and him who stood standing. He had to learn how to stay cool in the face of danger like Harry did. God, could he fight when push came to shove. Harry always seemed to keep his cool in a crisis situation. It had been his distraction with the shelves that had allowed them to get the jump first. Neville thought he still had a long way to reach Harry, hell who was he kidding. He probably would never reach Harry in skill and raw power. He sure would try to be a close second. One thing for sure, he knew deep down that he would be by his side when the final showdown came with Voldemort. He owed him and his parents that much. He wanted Bellatrix Lestrange dead so bad he could taste it.

Harry walked back down the steps and out of Hogwarts main doors. The sky was blue, there was little wind in the air, and it was definitely hot! He spotted the carriage and hauled his trunk and other effect into the back of the carriage. He got onto the carriage and spotted Luna

Harry said, "Hi Luna"

Luna replied, "Hi Harry, it's a beautiful day isn't it. You can just smell the pheromones in the air. Many creatures must be mating today."

Harry gave her a sort of queer look and said, "Ah, yeah I'm sure they are?"

Luna always seemed to be saying off the cuff comments like that at the most bizarre times. He looked at her and noticed that she had developed quite nicely in all the right places this past school year. She had long strawberry blond hair, with sky blue eyes, long legs, and perky bust.

Luna noticed Harry examining her out of the corner of her eye and looked straight at him with that dreamy smile and said

"Do you like by breast Harry? They have really come into their own this year. I am really pleased with them maybe sometime I'll show them to you."

Harry's jaw dropped and his face turned deep red and quickly looked away, not knowing what to say he simply said, "Yah maybe someday Luna." She just gave him a dreamy smile and went back to reading her Quibbler.

Harry's mind started drifting off again, and found himself thinking about his friends. All he had were his best friends, but how long would the trio last. It was evident to anybody who looked at Ron and Hermione that they were going to be a couple soon, and he would be left out again. They were already arguing as if they had been married for 30 years.

He couldn't blame Hermione for choosing Ron over him. Hell, who would want to be with someone who was on a psychopathic snakehead hit list every year? Just to be friends with Harry was dangerous to your health. Truth be told, he really did not feel that way about Hermione anyway, she was more like a sister to him. As far as Ron was concerned, he knew that his friend felt like he was always second rate to him. Ron always felt like he was in his shadow. Every time Harry tried to talk to him about it, Ron would deny that was the case, but of course Harry knew better. Deep down Ron craved his supposed fame and money and Harry knew this without a doubt. Ron was a volcano waiting to erupt.

For some reason, Ron seemed unable to grow out of that funk. He didn't seem to realize what was really important. Their relationship was certainly evolving. The events of their 4th year had been a sort of watershed moment in their relationship. Some feelings had come to the surface and they were really hard to bottle back up.

No matter how many times he told Ron how he would trade everything he owned, just to have the love of his parents and godfather back. Ron seemed too thick to see it. In the end, maybe breaking ties with his best friends might be the best way to keep them alive. If they distanced themselves from him, he would certainly understand. Harry had an uneasy feeling that many things would change over the summer.

Well one thing was for certain, they were going to have a much better summer, than he would that's for damn sure. Hermione said she was going to Sydney, Australia for the summer and Ron told him that he planned on going to Romania for the summer. Ron was going to work at the Dragon reserve with his brother Charlie.

Harry of course was heading to Dursleyban, his personal little jail all courtesy of the great and wonderful fucking Albus Dumbledore. Immediately following the events at the DOM, the great light wizard of their time felt it necessary to finally divulge a prophecy about him that had been made fifteen years ago. He had felt such an ultimate sense of betrayal at his hands that night; he had known all along about this damn prophecy and did nothing but distance himself from him.

He now realized that Dumbledore could have handled things so differently. Instead of dumping him on the Dursleys, the night his parents died, he could have brought him to another wizard family. At least he would have grown up knowing who and what he was. Instead, he just assumed that all he needed was to stay within the safety of blood magic and that everything would be fine.

He never once bothered to check how he was, or how he was being treated. . He was no longer the naïve little boy who first came to Hogwarts at the tender age of 11. Harry now realized that in life there are no such things as black and white but only shades of grey.

Here he was the great saviour of wizard kind being abused like a house elf. God the old bastard had to know what was going on. His own fucking acceptance letter to Hogwarts had been addressed to a bloody cupboard. Did that senile bastard think it was normal for children to live in cupboards?

Harry was almost certain that his parents knowing that they were being hunted would have made proper arrangements for their only son to be properly taken care of. His mother knew that her relationship with her sister sucked. She would not have wanted her offspring to go live with a sister that harboured nothing but animosity and hate towards her.

Harry had learned enough about magic these last 5 years to know that there were always alternatives. Powerful wards in place of blood magic could have been installed to protect him if he had lived with another family. Hogwarts doesn't have blood magic and even Voldemort himself is not foolish enough to attack the castle.

No, the old coot had done this for the sole purpose of expediency and keeping his weapon safe. Forget the fact that the weapon could end up physiologically or physically damaged. He had received some physical punishment from them. It was mostly in the form of Dudley beating up on him. They were probably too scared of somebody eventually finding out and tarnishing their good name if they tried to abuse him physically.

Instead, they had delivered 10 years of sheer mental abuse that Harry would not wish on his worst enemy except for Voldemort and his death eaters, and Malfoy Jr. of course.

Harry felt as thought all of his innocence had died with him in that office. He now understood what he meant to all these people. They didn't give a shit about him. They didn't care for him. They didn't want to know what he thought or what his dreams were. He dreamed what everybody wanted. He dreamed of owning a house, of having a good job, of finding his true love and raising a family. He just wanted to be happy. To everyone else, he now realized that he was just a tool plain and simple. He was a chess piece in the great scheme of things. He was at the tender mercy of the great master puppeteer Albus Dumbledore.

Harry guessed that he has been around for so long, that over time people became less tangible to him. They merely became assets for his use to ensure the survival of the so-called light side in the wizarding world. It seemed to him that Voldemort and Dumbledore were playing an intricate game of chess, and everybody else was either spectators or mere pawns.

It seemed like everyone was caught in their infernal game. Dumbledore had certainly sacrificed people in his past. No doubt, it had been for the so-called greater good. His parents came at the top of that list. Dumbledore had hidden them under the Fidelius charm, which he cast himself. Why had he not insisted on being their secret keeper? OOPS, another strategic mistake from the great chess master.

He remembered Lupin talking about those times. There was a traitor in their mist and nobody knew who it was. Naturally, it had been perfectly fine to use an infant and a young couple to flush out the traitor. Well we all know how well that turned out.

The old coot had known about the prophecy since before his birth. He obviously did not believe that Voldemort had died that night. Like Hagrid, he thought that he was just buying his time. If that were the case, would it not have been logical to try and find him and go after him instead of waiting for him to resurrect himself.

At the very least they could have kept him on the run, prevent him from having enough time to organize, plan and execute. What about his own training, Dumbledore had known all along that Harry would be facing him. The old coot had done nothing to help him train for the eventual conflict. God Damn Nothing! Harry could have spent his summers from the time he started Hogwarts to train and prepare for his eventual showdown. Harry could have had 4 summers getting special training. Instead, the old coot just sends him back to those fucking Dursleys and sits in the dark like a mushroom.

Of course, when mentioning training it's worth noting that Hogwarts has had nothing but utter fucking failures for DADA teacher. Their only decent year was third year, where Remus was actually teaching them the course content. The first and only competent teacher they find in god knows how many years and what does the board of Governors do? They canned him at the end of the year because he is a werewolf.

Parents found out that there was a werewolf teaching their children. Oh my god what a crime. As if proper precautions couldn't be put in place to ensure the safety of the students. Hell, he is only dangerous at full moon, and then there is the wolf bane potion that Snape can brew to keep him docile. Of course, it was Snape himself that had him canned because of some stupid teenage rivalry.

Although he is a major part of the problem, the other more important part of the problem is the overbearing prejudice and bigotry that the rest of the wizarding world has against all other magical creatures. Elves, Goblins, Werewolves, Vampires, and countless others have been made to suffer under the Human magical cast. The light side apparently consider themselves the enlightened. What a fucking monumental joke that is. That hag Umbridge had the audacity to think herself above everyone else. She was certainly the poster girl for stereotypes and prejudice.

Hell when Harry found out there was such a thing as wizard and witches, and all the incredible things that they could do, He thought that with these abilities came great enlightenment. Boy was he wrong. Over the years spent in this world it became evident that the ministry was corrupt to the bone.

The wizards and witches that the ministry governs are just the most gullible fucks that he had ever met. Hell it seemed that the more outrageous the rumour the more they believed it. Wizard kind believes that they are governed by a democracy. Send them all to hell, they are not a democracy they're a blasted dictator ship. Harry figured that all that inbreeding from the purebloods has diluted the brain juices or something. Most of them think that they are so much better than muggles because they can do magic.

Harry thought that they were so wrong to think this. Over his years of reading, he found that muggles spent an enormous amount of resources in understanding the sciences in all their forms. It's funny that wizards and witches can do things with their wands, that right now would seem like science fiction to most muggles and yet their understanding of the basic science behind magic is stuck in the medieval times.

They are only concerned with results and do not really care to find out why magic work the way it does. Some of the unspeakable at the ministry may have a more intimate knowledge of magic. However, their endeavours are still primarily in the applications department. Muggles have dedicated centuries in understanding their scientific principle. Yes, we can cast an _Avada-Kadavra_ at someone and kill them instantly. When it comes down to it, muggles have a lot more experience in killing and waging war than wizard kind does.

Good old Voldemort thinks he can take over the muggles. What an idiot. All they have to do is find out about us and if they are irked enough launch a nuclear weapon at Diagon Alley. Wizard kind would be obliterated in the blink of an eye. Good old Tom may have taken measures to ensure his survival, but Harry doubted even his transformations would last if a Nuke hit him bull's eye. With that much energy released, nothing could withstand that.

Harry was roused from his thoughts when Luna and Neville shouted, "We are here."

When did Neville get into the carriage he mused? Harry never heard him come in. He must have been lost in his thoughts again.

Harry finally said, "All right lets unload and find a compartment." They made their way to the middle of the train and found an empty compartment. Harry sat down and started looking out of the window. He really didn't want to engage anyone in conversation. What else was there to say? Harry started thinking of the prophecy again.

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…_

_Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…_

_And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power that the Dark Lord knows not…_

_And either must die at the had of the other for neither can live while the other survives… The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies.."_

Harry thought, here it is briefly. He had to be murdered or become a murderer. Hell even if he didn't believe the fucking prophecy, Tommy gun does, and he will stop at nothing to find out what it's all about. If he ever does find out, he is going to come at me with even more vigour.

God damn, why can't he just be left alone, that's all he ever wanted. He could feel a tear on the right side of his cheek. Well Harry thought it comes down to this. He could either let Tom win right now by killing himself, or get into high gear and find a way to defeat that motherfucker.

One thing is for certain, whatever this power is, and Harry knew he would have to depend on himself to find it. He certainly couldn't depend on good old Albus now could he? Fuck he's had 15 years to develop a training plan for him and the bastard has done sweet fuckall. Hell, how moronic can you get, the old coot thinks this power that he has is his capacity to love. What kind of crap is that? What was he suppose to do when he meets good old Voldie again? Go up to him and give him a big French kiss on that snake face of his, and hope he topples over.

'What the fuck! This basically shows that Dumbledore doesn't have a fucking clue how to defeat Voldemort. Well I'm sorry to say, BUT THIS ENDS RIGHT FUCKING NOW. My trust and my ties to the Order and Dumbledore end today.' Harry would take his life and his training into his own hands. Harry swore that he would be open to anything and everything. He would study both magic and muggle science he thought. Maybe there are discoveries to be made in mixing the two he mused.

Harry knew that good old Voldie certainly didn't study muggle sciences. He views muggles are nothing but apes to be exterminated. If nothing else, Hermione certainly proved and drove into his head that knowledge is power. The only way to attain knowledge is to get the right books and the necessary time.

Harry decided to pull out a parchment and a quill and started outlining his plan; he decided that what ever he missed in his planning, he would play the rest by ear. Harry thought to himself that he was due for some luck once and for all and he knew that he would need it to pull off what he had in mind.

Plan

1. Need to convince Dursleys to leave me alone

2. Need to plan on how to get to Gringotts, Get a final tally of all my assets. Need to get down to my vault.

3. Look for another magical pet to keep me company, preferably a snake, if my relatives hear me speak to a snake they might be scared enough to leave me alone.

4. Go to Knockturn Alley (dark arts books, light magic books, battle books, ministry censored books…etc.) MUST find a way to do magic without ministry knowing it!

5. Shop at Flourish and Blots. Buy more books on magical theory, charms, transfigurations, potions DADA, and fighting.

6. Find alternate weapons.

7. Go and get a new trunk, maybe one like Moody had, not sure yet.

8. Go to London and buy muggle science books, combat and warfare books, clothes and some electronics (computer). Hook up to Internet.

Get back to Dursleys.


	3. Chapter 2 Confrontation and Finances

**Chapter 2 "Confrontation and Finances"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

From the outside scenery, Harry could tell that they would be reaching Kings Cross Station very soon. He found his thoughts wondering to Sirius again, and he had to quash the overwhelming feeling of despair and sorrow, that was always at the surface these days.

He had to be strong, even though he simply wanted to just fade into anonymity. He wanted to be left alone and take the time needed to properly mourn Sirius. He knew that he simply could not allow himself to do that. If he wanted to avenge all the wrongs done to him, he had to stay focused on his goals.

Finally the Hogwarts train stopped. Harry stood up and stretched. He then picked up his trunk and Hedwig's cage from the overhead storage bins, and said his goodbyes to his friends.

"Hey Neville – Luna, you guys have a good summer o.k."

Luna replied "Oh Harry, you look after your self too, I know it hurts to lose Sirius, I know how long it took me to get over my mums death, but you know as well as I do, there they are not really gone, you remember the voices behind the veil don't you?"

"We will see them again when it's our time Harry. Just remember that they are still looking out for us" With that she stood at the tip of her toes and gave him a peck on the cheek. She then walked out to meet her dad. Harry didn't know what to make of that, but some how found some comfort in her parting words.

"Hey Harry" Neville called. "I want to thank you again for everything you taught me this year, it means a lot to me."

Harry replied, "Just remember Neville, You are as good a wizard as they come. You just needed a nudge in the confidence department." Harry clasped his left shoulder and gave it a squeeze, and with that he stepped out of the compartment and made his way out of the train, he stepped out of platform 9 ¾ and braced himself to meet his dreaded relatives.

The first thing that Harry saw was Mrs. Weasley running to hug Ron and Ginny. She turned around and asked him how he was. Of course Harry lied and said he was fine. What a stupid question that was, how should he feel right after his godfather died. He then looked at Ron who was gawking at the twins' new clothes, he noticed another hint of jealousy apparent on his face, but that was nothing unusual coming from Ron. The Joke shop must be doing very well indeed mused Harry.

"Hello Harry." greeted Lupin, "Hi" said Harry. He also noticed Mad Eye, Tonks, and Mr. Weasley.

"What are you guys doing here?"

Lupin said "Well we thought we might have a bit of a chat with your relatives." He hissed.

"I don't know if that is such a good idea," said Harry.

"Oh I think it is!" growled Moody. His magical eye was obviously peering through his head. He stepped to the left and noticed the Dursleys, who looked positively irritated to be seeing him and his friends.

To Harry's amusement, the wizarding reception committee proceeded to give the Dursleys a verbal trashing. They told them how unhappy they were about how he was treated in their care. Mad Eye was talking to Vernon, and his Uncle looked to be affronted and started blustering, but Mad Eye would have none of it. Of course being the coward that Vernon Dursleys really was, there was no option for him but to capitulate. Harry could see that his fat pachyderm of an uncle was scared shitless. Of course Mad Eye could have that effect on people.

Harry looked to his uncle's right and of course there stood his horse face of an aunt who went by the name of Petunia Evans Dursley. She now looked quite agitated to be in the presence of Order members; probably scared that she is going to be spotted by one of her light minded neighbours. Of course no Dursley family would be complete without his dear cousin Ickle Ditty Dumbkins. The fat oaf was trying to hide behind his rake of a mother. Of course he was failing miserably. If nothing else, his cousin had graduated from a baby whale to a full-blown adult soropod Dinosaur. Just the very sight of them made his stomach turn.

Harry bid farewell to Ron and Hermione, "Have a good trip guys, See you later", he said in a sort of cool voice.

He then turned around and made his way with his relatives to the family sedan. They pulled out of Kings Cross Station and got onto Main Street. All the while they kept glancing at Harry every now and then. Aside from the occasional sneering they said nothing. Harry went back to watching the outside scenery while his cousin who practically took 2/3 of the seat tried in vain to make himself look small.

Uncle Vernon looked in the rear view mirror and yelled "Boy! I did not appreciate your little welcoming reception; we'll be having a little chat tonight BOY! And make no mistake I don't care what those FREAKS SAY! I run my household not your ABNORMAL friends."

Harry decided that getting it on in the car was not wise. He could wait until supper for the showdown of all showdowns to erupt. He simply replied, **"**Yes Uncle Vernon**"** with a sneer on his face. He went back to looking out of his window. He could see from the corner of his eye that Dudley was smiling viciously at him. Fine he thought you'll get yours tonight too. After the events of his school year, with Umbridge, Death Eaters and Voldemort, he was not going to be intimidated by his stupid, overbearing, fat muggle relatives anymore. If anything, Harry had a lot of pent-up anger that needed releasing, and they would provide the perfect recipients of his anger.

They passed by the Leaky Cauldron on their way to the rotary. Harry noticed for the first time the many shops, which littered that part of London. He saw a book store, an electronic store, a male fashion store; he even saw a muggle company theatre for plays and such. Interesting he thought, he now realized that he never really paid any attention to all of the muggle stores before.

Remembering his first year, he had been way too enthralled at being delivered from his servitude at the time. All he noticed was the magical world. At the time, he didn't think very highly of the muggle world, mostly due to the Dursleys' treatment of him. All he could really remember from it were primary school, bullies and a very sheltered life under a cupboard at number 4 Privet Drive.

His thoughts wandered to Sirius again, something he found very difficult to avoid these days. God, he never wanted Sirius to get hurt. Harry knew deep down that he would always feel some guilt over his involvement in Sirius death. He had learned his lessons over his godfather's demise that's for sure.

However there were other people to blame for what happened, other than him. First on that list was that greasy hair, beak nose mother fucker Snape…. if that wicked rat fuck son of a bitch could have actually acted like a professional for once in his life, instead of holding teenage vendettas that should have died decades ago.

'If he could have put aside his feelings for his father and the Marauders and actually teach me the art of Occlumency, then events could have turned out quite differently. All he ever said was clear your mind. Fucking HOW! What techniques should I use? There was no teaching! All he ever did was weaken my natural defences, and rape my mind. His only goal was to find more ways to torture me.' Harry hated Snape with such raw passion; he was never going to forgive him. Harry promised himself that someday Snape was going to pay for every thing he ever did to Sirius and him.

Second on his hit list was the great Dumbledore himself. His betrayal hurts the most. From the time Harry started at Hogwarts, he had looked up to him and expected him to do right by him. Last year he thought of Dumbledore as his saviour for taking him away from the Dursleys. After the event at the department of mysteries, Harry had taken the time to relive all of his moment at Hogwarts. It dawned on him that it had been the headmaster's chess moves that had put him in danger every year he went there.

Maybe that's what he wanted all along. Carefully manipulate the events at every turn to further the image of the Boy-Who-Lived in the eyes of the wizarding world. Now that Harry thought about it, why had the sorting hat looked at putting him in Slyterin? From the very first time he met Hagrid, he had been made to believe that Slyterin house was bad. Of course meeting Draco Malfoy at Madame Malkin's hadn't helped the image of Slyterin that's for sure.

He wondered how things would have turned out if he had gone into Slyterin. Supposedly, he was the weapon to get rid of Voldemort. So what does Dumbledore do? He keeps Harry in the dark all summer. Last year, he kept him isolated from his friends, kept a total information blackout. Harry had been forced to deal with Cedric's death all by himself.

This year, he refused to tell him why he should be taking lessons in Occlumency with Snape of all people. Dumbledore made every effort to avoid him during the school year. He didn't even try to explain his actions. Two weeks ago Dumbledore told him that it was all done to safeguard that God Damn Prophecy. His godfather died in large part because of Dumbledore's fuck up.

Dumbledore must have felt that his little Gryffindor pea brain couldn't understand the stakes. On top of all that there was that lying, kaniving, and little pawn scum of an Elf who goes by the name of Kreacher. The damn house elf lied to him about Sirius being captured. He was obviously working for that bitch Bellatrix and Narcissa the whole time. Finally let's not forget that fucking hag Umbrige and her man whore the Minister of Magic himself Cornelius I'm an asshole Fudge. They all conspired to make his life a living hell.

Remembering all these events suddenly became too much for him and he once again became filled with despair. He could no longer keep his emotions in check no matter how hard he tried and silently tears began rolling down his cheeks. He could feel his rage begging to be unleashed.

Harry swore, as god was his witness they would all pay dearly for what they did to his parents, Sirius and him. The muggles have a saying PAY BACK IS A BITCH. Well he intended on becoming the god damn poster boy for that saying. At that moment, unknown to Harry, his eyes began to glow neon green and shone like little beacons, a white aura began to surround him. Harry felt himself feeding on his rage. It would feel so good to completely give in. Dudley had been keeping an eye on his cousin and noticed his insane smile and looked at his eyes and noticed the odd glow and yelled

"Dad! Harry is crying and doing some Freak thing with his eyes."

Vernon looked into his rear view mirror and suddenly his face took on malicious sneer and his face started turning into a weird puce color and bellowed

"BOY WHAT DID WE TELL YOU ABOUT CRYING IN FRONT OF US? WHAT HAPPENED! ONE OF YOUR FREAK BOYFRIED LEFT YOU? HA, HA, HA…"

"You know better then to let your abnormality run loose BOY! I am going to have to think up of an appropriate punishment for this." Vernon finished with a maniacal grin on his face.

Once again Dudley was snickering. Suddenly Harry realized where he was and understood he had to reign in his anger for now. It was not the right time to let it loose, soon, but not yet. His Aunt was giving him a death glare, and he glared back at her, she noticed his eyes and turned away immediately.

Nobody said anything for the duration of the drive, which suited Harry immensely. As his Uncle Vernon pulled into the driveway Harry noticed Hedwig perched on the top branch of the oak tree. She was doing a very good job of concealment. Hedwig had flown ahead of them so she wouldn't be locked in the small trunk for the three-hour car ride.

So Harry got out of the car, walked to the back and opened the car trunk. He dragged out his battered school trunk and owl's cage. His Aunt Petunia and Dudley had already rushed inside the house. In Dudley's case, unable to run, he had wobbled inside the house. His uncle locked the car trunk and rushed in after his wife.

Well Harry thought to himself, it was too much to expect any help from any of those assholes. He opened the front door and hauled his trunk and cage up the stairs and into his bedroom. He struggled some with his trunk, and finally got it up to his bedroom. He was out of breath and realized that he had to get into much better shape.

Harry had noticed toward the end of his school year that he had undergone a real growth spurt, he was now a respectable 5'-11". Of course not being starved helps your growth. He knew he would grow some more, but he was also pretty thin, thanks in part to his high metabolism and lack of good nutrition these last two months. The stress of OWLs, lack of decent sleep, Umbridge, the ministry, and Sirius had all piled up on his body. He knew he had to take much better care of himself. He promised he would make it up to himself.

Looking around his room, or to what he most commonly referred too as his own personalized jail cell. He put Hedwig's cage on the left corner of his old beat up desk. He opened the window and immediately Hedwig flew in and landed on top of her cage.

"Hi girl." he said.

"Did you have a good fly?" Hedwig looked at him and hooted a reply. Harry had always thought that his owl could just about understand everything he said. Aside from Hagrid, she was the best friend anybody could ever have. He loved her deeply. Harry knew that Hedwig loved him unconditionally. Harry felt really bad about ignoring her for a good part of his school year.

Harry decided to let her know he was sorry. "Hey Girl, I'm so sorry I ignored you last year; I was so caught up with everything. It's no excuse on my part, I hope you understand. You didn't deserve to be ignored like that sweetie."

She hooted softly and brushed her head against his cheek. "I promise I'll never ignore you like that again, I love you girl."

She affectingly nipped his fingers. Harry decided to give her loads of treats tonight. He sat there for about 5 minutes just gently petting her back. She really loved having her back feathers caressed.

Harry let Hedwig enjoy her treats, and went back to store his belongings. He put his battered trunk at the foot of his bed and proceeded to put his schoolbooks on his broken bookshelves. He then looked into his closet to take stock of his clothes. God they were so beat up, and decrepit he thought. He really had to go shopping and treat himself to some nice things.

Harry looked at his beat up old watch and realized that supper was coming up soon. He knew that tonight a lot of things would change. Tonight was the night that he was going to start his path to war. After the events of DOM, he realized he only had two choices. He could willow in self-pity, fall into depression and give in to his suicidal tendency or he could take the high road and avenge his parents and Sirius.

In the end, he realized that if he quit, then Voldemort had won and all of his parent's sacrifices along with his godfather would have been in vain. He had to go on, there was no other choice. He realized that he could simply run away and hide in the muggle world, but that was no answer either. For one thing, Voldemort wouldn't give a shit about him quitting. He would come for him anyway. Second, quitting and hiding went against his very fibre. He had never quit on anything, and he wasn't about to start now.

He decided to lie on his bed and wait for supper. Might as well make his time productive and started going over his plans for tomorrow. He had so many things that needed to be done. The next few days would decide his fate. He had to play his cards very carefully. Finally the call to supper came in the form of his aunts shrilly voice

"Boy, get down here and help me set the table!"

He got off his bed and made sure that he had his wand tucked in his right shirtsleeve. He went down to the kitchen and started setting the table. His uncle was sneering at him in disdain the whole time. When that was done, his aunt served him a miniscule portion again. 'I guess they didn't take the Orders threats very seriously,' he thought to himself. He sat down at the table, and looked at his plate; he had one very small slice of roast beef with vegetables and a little sauce. He looked over at his dinosaur of a cousin who seemed to have his plate piled with meat, gravy and potatoes. Dudley looked back at him and snickered.

He looked up from his plate and looked at his uncle who looked at him and smiled

"Well boy, did you honestly think that those freaks were going to scare us, eh?"

"After everything we have done for you and this is how you repay us!" by this time his uncles face had taken on a very unhealthy puce color, bordering on blue to be truthful.

His uncle then bellowed, "We decide how things go in this home, you little shit! You thought you had chores last year? This year will be ten times worse! How do you like that, eh?"

Your no good bum of a father and your bitch of a mother saw fit to dump you on our doorsteps. Well then you can suffer for their irresponsible behaviour you little freak. Harry had been waiting for just the mention of his parents to work himself up and unleash his rage. He brought forth all of his memories of his mistreatment by the Dursleys, he felt an unbelievable rage build up in him. Harry turned his head to get a good look at his uncle and suddenly stood up from his chair and looked directly into his uncle's eyes and to the utter shock of the Dursleys bellowed.

"YOU FUCKING SACK OF MONKEY SPUNK, YOU BULLYING RATFUCK SON OF A WHORE! Everything you have ever done for me? Well let me tell you what you've done for me." Harry's voice was now dripping with venom.

Harry continued, "Well you and your bastard family have done nothing but bully me from the time I could walk. You damn near starved me, stuffed me in a cupboard till I was 11, got me to be your fucking slave, always left me behind when you went on your little trips, never showed me any love what so ever. You did nothing but put me down, and physiologically abuse me. I was Dudley's little punching bag for at least 8 years. Well let me tell you."

"I will not be taking anymore shit from you or the rest of your bastard family! Ever Again! This ends tonight, he roared!" Harry could see the near state of shock the Dursleys were in and continued.

"I have to train to fight this fucking demon by the name of Voldemort that plagues my world, and I am the only one who can kill him according to some fucking prophecy. From here on end I only answer to my own council do you hear me? Because so help me god I will fucking kill you if you get in my way." Harry could see the near hysteria on his aunt's face and decided to give the final punch.

"**Nobody will Ever step on me again!"**

By this time Harry eyes were glowing like green neon signs, and his magic was starting to surround his body. Of course Vernon Dursleys being an upstanding citizen and utterly clueless where his nephew was concerned, roared and bellowed, "HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME THIS WAY YOU LITTLE BASTARD!"

For a man of his weight and girth, Vernon Dursley was surprisingly fast. He rounded the table and swung at Harry. Harry however had been expecting this and was faster, his reflexes having been honed after all those years of Quidditch. He managed to duck his head out of the way, but still managed to take a good hit on his shoulder, which sent him flying to the floor. He bumped his head on the edge of the counter. At this point Harry was pissed, his head was in pain and he saw nothing but green in front of him.

All the years of pain and suffering rushed out of him, and he quickly got up from the floor and rushed his uncle. By now his magical aura had completely surrounded his body and he yelled, "YOU FAT FUCK HOW DARE YOU HIT ME, I have had enough!"

His uncle never saw the fist coming from his nephew. Harry cocked his left fist and smashed his uncle in the solar plexus, he heard a loud crack and saw his uncle fly through the air and smash into the living room wall. His uncle then slid down the wall clutching his chest. He noticed that his uncle had also left a sizable imprint in the living room wall. By this time Dudley decided to come to his fathers rescue.

He rushed towards Harry, but Harry saw him coming and avoided a fist the size of Scotland coming his way. He then kicked Dudley where his family gonads were. The kick was so strong, that Dudley had actually lifted a foot in the air. He heard a loud cry, and then a thump to the floor. At this point Dudley was reeling from the pain, and at that moment he did the only thing that he could. He upchucked his supper right on himself and went into a foetal position and began moaning in pain.

Harry said "So much for the Junior Heavyweight Interschool Boxing Champion of the Southeast."

Harry, who was now facing his cousin, had forgotten that his aunt was behind him. His aunt who looked momentarily paralyzed from her nephews actions, recovered from her shock. With a rage filling her eyes, she ran over to Harry, and managed to come from behind and hit her nephew on the side of his face with her right fist.

She of course was nowhere close to her son or husbands strength, but she still managed to momentarily stun him, Harry shook his head and whirled around to face her, what happened next, would stay burned in her mind for the rest of her days. Harry surprised by the hit, looked at the fury in his aunt's eyes and touched his lip and looked at the blood on his fingers, with a sneer on his face he backhanded his aunt across the face with all the force he could muster.

Harry heard a loud CRACK. Harry saw his aunt sailing from the kitchen table and smashed into the dreaded cupboard door. He looked back at her, and noticed that blood was flowing from her nose freely. He must have broken her nose. He didn't think he hit her that hard. It must be my magic, he thought. Petunia Dursleys remembered hitting her nephew, and then feeling a blinding pain on her face. She shook her head, and noticed she was crumpled on the floor, she felt as if she had fallen onto the pavement face first. She now noticed the blood oozing from her nose and mouth.

She looked back towards her nephew and saw that his eyes had that same green neon color that she had seen that day in the car. For the first time in her life she was scared to death for her life. Next thing that happened, her nephew yelled at both Dudley and her to get their asses to the living room couch. Harry told them they were going to have a little family chat.

Next he went to Vernon who was sitting on the living room floor lying against the dented wall. His uncle seemed to have picked up a pronounced wheezing all of a sudden. Harry looked at the pathetic fat pig lying on the floor and remembered all of the mental abuse he had suffered at his hands. He bent down and with a grunt picked him up by the collar, which was no small feat, considering the size of his uncle. He then looked into his sneering face, and CRACK.

He smashed his uncle over five times in the face with his left fist. All the while yelling, "I HATE YOU!" over and over.

Blood was oozing from his uncle. By now his nose was broken, he had several cuts above his eyebrows, and his front teeth had been knocked out. He let go of his uncle who crumbled back to the floor. He then proceeded to kick him repeatedly in the ribs and the kidneys. After another minute or so, he picked him by up by his collar again and pushed him roughly unto the couch. He hit the couch and just grunted, barely coherent. By this time they all had a sickly look in their face and a deep worry of what was coming next. Harry looked positively demonic.

Harry laid it out like this and said, "All right," he said, "listen up. I am only going to say this once, I never asked to come to this blasted shit hole and live with you bastards. The only reason I'm here is because that conniving, slimy Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore stuck me here fifteen years ago, because of an ancient blood protection that my MOTHER, gave me when she sacrificed herself for me."

No one said anything so Harry continued, "In the process may I add, she allowed all of you pathetic assholes, to live your safe and very boring little life. The reason I have to stay here is to recharge the wards that are in effect." He waited a few seconds for his words to sink in and continued.

"You see, just to spite your sorry asses I could just leave and let the wards fail. Then you would all be at Voldemort tender mercy. Believe me, he would find you in no time and torture you to insanity. Dudley, if you thought that Dementors were bad last summer, it's nothing compared to what the death eaters would do to you." Harry could see his cousin nearly pissing himself and continued.

"Now I have a lot of things to do this summer, and I cannot have you interfere with my business any longer. However as bad as Voldemort is, he is not the one who you have to worry about anymore; you will have to worry about me for a change. If you get in my way, let me tell you what I plan to do."

Harry whipped out his wand so fast that it looked like a blur to them. He then said, "Uncle Vernon, I happen to be pretty good at transfiguration. You see that's a branch of magic that delves into the study of changing one form into another."

"Now Vernon!" he said with such venom. "If you don't cooperate and play nice, I plan on turning you into a female hygiene product. You will find yourself becoming closer to aunt Petunia then you have ever dreamed of before."

Harry then turned to Dudley and said, "You, my dear cousin. If you bug me again, or if I see you beating up on any more kids in Surrey, I will transfigure you into a toilet bowl. I will then make sure that I eat lots of fibre. I will then proceed to take very long craps into Dudley the Lou. Do I make myself clear?"

He then turned on his aunt and said, " Dear aunty Petunia, If you under feed me, or get in my way again, or try to get me to do any of you bloody chores, I will personally curse you so bad, that you will become Surrey's most notorious slut. You will find yourself unable to resist fucking every guy on this street. Just so you know, you might be thinking that I cannot use my wand, and that it is forbidden. You know what? I don't give a fuck about the ministry of magic or Dumbledore anymore."

Harry noticed she was nearly ready to pass out and continued, "So help me god, if you piss me off again, I will not hesitate to use magic on you." Harry now noticed that Dudley and Vernon looked almost green with fright.

"Now I will go out of my way to stay out of your way. I will no longer have curfews, is that understood." He waited for their acknowledgment and continued.

"I will come and go, as I please no questions asked. If you want any chores done, then you can get your useless son Ickle Diddy Dumplings to get off his fat arse and do something for once in his life. It is currently against my better judgment to help any of you out, but I may have a way to ensure that we stay out of each other's way. I'll see what comes of it tomorrow. If we can manage to completely avoid each other, it will be much better for both our healths, would you agree?"

He then looked at his aunt's eyes, and had to say one more thing. "You aunt Petunia, how you can look at yourself in the mirror every morning and not be degusted by what you see is beyond me. You had the power to stop all of this abuse for the last fifteen years and did nothing about it. I, your only last living blood relative, the only reminder of the link you once had to your sister and you let that bastard of a husband control every aspect of your relationship with me. When the time comes to meet my mother, you will have an awful lot to answer for. If there is any justice, you'll be sent straight to hell." Petunia just sat there crying.

By this time the entire Dursleys families were scared beyond belief. They simply nodded their heads. In Vernon's case he was swaying his head.

Harry said, "You should drive yourselves to the hospital. Some of you look like you may need some tender loving care." Harry was just sneering at them by then.

With that, he made his way to the counter where the rest of the roast beef was, which was a hefty four pound's worth, and put the whole thing on a carving platter. He then picked up a carton of juice and the rest of the mash potatoes and walked upstairs to his bedroom.

Harry thought for a second and decided that it might be safer to take a little precaution. He took the chair from under his desk and jammed it underneath the doorknob. You never know, they might decide on some retribution for his actions tonight and barge in unannounced in the middle of the night.

Harry played back his actions tonight and uttered out loud, "Damn revenge really does feel good."

Now just maybe, they will think twice about messing with him again. He allowed himself as small smile to cross his lips, and proceeded to demolish the rest of the roast beef. He knew he had to go to sleep soon; he had a very long day ahead of him tomorrow.

**Earlier That Evening**

Unknown, to Harry, Tonks was on shift that evening. With the attack on the ministry, Dumbledore had been very explicit about increasing vigilance where Harry was concerned. She could tell that a change had occurred in Harry. Sirius death had been rough on her, and Remus was totally depressed. He was in a bad straight. He was now the only Marauder left. Pettigrew doesn't count. That double-crossing bastard will get his when the time comes. Harry however seemed to have been affected the most.

He had been one angry kid last summer, but she had a feeling that was nothing to what he was feeling right now. She was brought from her musing by a loud commotion coming from the Dursleys kitchen. She edged closer to the window and what she saw would stay marked in her brain for a very long time.

She looked at Harry, and his eyes were glowing neon green, and he had a white aura covering his whole body. What she saw then was an incredible display of physical magic. He wasted his uncle and cousin and smashed his aunt. Bodies were flying everywhere. She cannot imagine what they said to him, but it must have been pretty bad to piss him off like that. She was wondering if she should intervene or not.

The last thing she wanted to do was to make her presence known, if Harry knew he was being watched by the Order, he might turn on her. Even thought she was a fully trained Auror and was a powerful witch in her own right, she knew that Harry was a lot more powerful then her. In fact she had never met somebody his age who was that powerful.

She shuddered to think what would happen if he completely let go. The frightening thing was that he was not even close to his full magical maturity. She looked and saw Harry talking to them, and they seemed to be cowering on the couch, gee no shit there. Wow that was a close one; they don't seem to be too injured. It looks like Harry is holding off his temper for now. She would have to report this little incident to the order on her next meeting.

Harry lay into his mattress going over his plan for tomorrow. He first needed to lose the order. He had no qualms what so ever that the old bastard had his goon squad looking after their weapon. He would slip out of the house at around 5:00 am, and make his way to the back entrance.

Harry knew that he would need his invisibility cloak for his plan to work. He also needed some muggle cash. He had exchanged about 100 galleons a month ago into pounds. There was this little muggle exchange booth in Hogsmeade. He had about a surprising 5000 pounds worth of notes. Tomorrow he needed to get to the Leaky Cauldron and then to Gringotts.

He had to find out how much money he had first and foremost. This would dictate where he went from there. He also needed a really good disguise. He could not afford to get caught no matter what. Based on the amount of money he had to play with, he would then see how extravagant he would get into his purchasing. After Gringotts he wanted to get to Knockturn alley and get some dark arts books.

Over the last weeks, he had come to realize that this whole life they were being fed about light and dark magic was just nonsense. Light and Dark magic was just that, magic. It all came down to intent. You could have a maniac use a light spell such as _wingardium leviosa_ and drop someone off a cliff. Although the spell itself was considered a light magic spell, it could be twisted to evil intent.

The same was true for using dark magic. One could use a very dark spell and save a toddler from certain oblivion at the hands of death eaters. Although the spell would be dark the intent would be to save a life. Dumbledore was an idealist. A weapon is a weapon no matter the source. In the annals of history you have always had people with little scruples who will use any means possible to acquire power and subjugate people to their whims. No, Harry thought, he would seek out any and all weapons available to help him dispose of snake face. Now if…est.

_**Somewhere in North Scotland at a special school called Hogwarts**_

Albus Dumbledore stood by his window late in the evening, looking at the stars on this clear night. He sighed heavily and brought a hand up to massage his brow. He felt so old these days. He was deep in thought, and was reviewing the last two weeks worth of memories. Of course the subject of his preoccupation tonight was one Harry Potter.

The young lad had definitely become angrier this year. 'He was certainly mad at me,' he thought. The rest of the order fared no better for that matter. This past school year had certainly had its twist and turns. Events could have been played out quite differently, but what was done was done.

He would try to make amends with young Harry, as he had to gain his trust for a few more years, to ensure he is on board for the final play. He now believed that the key to defeating Voldemort lay in increasing the connection between Harry and Voldemort. The idea was that as their telepathic connection increased, their souls would eventually begin to intertwine.

Over the following years they could become so connected that when one of them died their shared essence would be so great that the others soul would be taken as well. Unknown to Severus, and playing on his natural hate for the young lad, he had asked him to teach Harry occlumency. Deep down he new that nothing good would come of it except weaken Harry's natural shields. Severus had been the catalyst to increase his mind link to Voldemort.

These were dangerous games to play, no doubt about that, but these were also very dangerous times. 'War forces us to make choices for the greater good, it's not fair to Harry, but when has life ever been fair?' Albus muttered.

_At the time of these thoughts, Albus Dumbledore could not have known how far from the truth his perceptions really were. He would regard his past thinking as a fool's thoughts for underestimating Harry Potter to that extent, and would pay dearly for it._

Although Harry has the potential to become one of the most powerful wizards in history, he was too volatile, and was not level headed enough. He had to keep playing to his Griffindor side. Throughout his years at Hogwarts he had not shown any spectacular academic talent except for DADA where he was rated number one throughout the school.

He had amazing instincts in the heat of battle and could think very strategically when he needed too. He was certainly brave and cared very much for his friends. On the whole however, he thought of Harry Potter as a fairly strong wizard magically, yet ordinary in intelligence. He expected his OWL to reflect that.

_Again Albus Dumbledore would be proven wrong _

In the final analysis, Harry Potter simply did not have the time to get up to Voldemort's level of magical knowledge. Voldemort had 50 years experience on him, not to mention that Tom had been an exceptional student to boot. No, that connection was his weapon, and all he had to do was wait.

There seemed to be no need to spend all kinds of training and resources on Harry. It's a good thing that he kept his playing card very close to his chest. In the grand scheme of things sacrificing a life here and there was an acceptable tactical loss when compared to the lives of the entire wizarding world.


	4. Chapter 3 Discoveries

**Chapter 3 " Discoveries "**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

_**Monday June 23, 1997**_

Harry woke up drenched in cold sweat. His sheets were tangled around his limbs and he gasped out loud trying to wrench himself free of his bindings. Panting hard he tore the covers away from his sweat soaked body and leaned over the bed. Here was another cursed nightmare from the night Sirius died. Why couldn't his inner demons leave him alone for just one night?

'Well at least these are just nightmares and not visions. Don't know how long my little reprieve will last before MoldieVoldie decides to play head games again. Definitely have to master occlumency and soon,' Harry thought. He ran a hand through his messy hair and disentangled himself from his sheets. He looked at his old Dumkins give away clock and it read 4:30 am. Well he might as well prepare for the day, dawn will be coming soon, and he wanted to be out of here before the dinosaurs woke up.

Hedwig's cage was empty. Harry remembered letting her out the previous night. He told her that he would most likely be gone for a minimum of two days and that he would meet her back in his room. He told her to make her way to the burrow if he was not back within three days. Harry made his way to his window and had a quick peek through the shutters.

Harry quietly opened his window, and noticed a faint smell of tobacco, and some mumbling. He thought that he made out Tonks and Mundungus' voices. Wow, shift change must be early this morning. Of course this would be the ideal time to capitalize on his escape. As they were both preoccupied, he quickly got dressed. He made sure he had his old ball cap and his invisibility cloak. He worked he way to the bottom of his closet. He finally found his old primary school bag. He stuffed his belongings into it and quietly made his way downstairs. He carefully opened the icebox and got himself a bunch of fruits and some buttered muffins. He stuffed the lot into his bag and made his way out toward the back door.

Harry wrote a quick message to the Dursleys, letting them know he would be gone for about 2 days, and if any of his freaky kind showed up to just tell them to fuck right off and not bother them. He then made his way to the back door and slipped his invisibility cloak on. He quietly made his way across to the neighbour's fence. It was more like a three-foot stonewalls divider. He could still make out Tonks and Mundungus quietly talking.

God if this is the best undercover agent that the order had, they were in deep shit. Hell any death eater could home in on their chattering and ice them. Forgetting the order gits, he proceeded to cross over too the neighbours fence and made his way toward the end of his street. There he got onto Lane Drive Boulevard and walked towards the bus stop at the end of that street.

Harry checked to make sure that nobody was around and took off his invisibility cloak. He checked the schedule and found that the first bus would come by at 5:15 am. He looked at his watch and found that he only had 5 minutes to wait. He decided that if the order found out that he left Privet Drive, their search would exhaust all wizard locations first. So getting on the Night Bus was out of the question. He stood a very good chance of staying anonymous by sticking to the muggle world until he got to the Leaky Cauldron.

Harry got on the bus, and paid his fare. The bus would get him to the Surrey train station. The bus dropped him off at the Surrey tube station. He checked the lines and picked the one to Kings Cross Station. Three quarters of an hour later, he got off at Kings Cross, and went to a newsstand to ask for directions. He needed to get to Main Ave in London.

An old gentleman gave him directions and for his kindness Harry bought a London city map from him. After another half hour, Harry was finally on Main Avenue. He looked at his watch and it was now 6:50 am. He decided to first get a decent breakfast and found himself a Wimpee eatery. Once he was settled at the diner he looked on his map and found that he was not to far off from the Leaky Cauldron. Harry figured he was going to have a very long day, so he decided to go all out on breakfast.

He ordered a Spanish Omelette with sausage, English muffins, jam and a cup of coffee. It never hurt to be extra alert. He made double sure that he had his wand and proceeded to tackle his breakfast. When he was done, he paid for his meal, and thanked the waitress.

He then made his way towards the Leaky Cauldron. He soon realized that the only disguise he had to cover his scar was a ball cap. He needed something much more refined than that. He remembered yesterday on the drive with the Dursleys that there was a theatre company on this street. Surely they could help out with a decent disguise, with the right amount of money or course. After all Harry thought, you never see anyone in these plays not wearing some kind of makeup.

Harry walked for another ten minutes and found the place. It was called Queens Landing Imperial Theatre. He walked to the door and found it to be open, which was surprising as most of these establishments do not open until much later. Luck, must be with him today. He called out

"Hello!"

Some lady came out from one of the doors and replied.

"Can I help you sir?"

Harry answered back, "Yes, I was wondering if you have anything like makeup or some other things that can help create a disguise for me?"

The lady looked him up and down and replied, "Why would you be interested I a disguise?"

Harry answered back, "Well you see, I'm on my way to visit my aunt, but where she lives there are these bullies that continuously harass me and I am really sick and tired of it. I need a disguise that can totally change my appearance."

So Harry asked again, "Can you help me?"

He quickly added, "I have money and I can pay."

She looked at him for a couple of minutes trying to figure out if this kid was trying to make fun of her, but seeing the serious look on his face she finally said "Sure kid come with me."

Harry followed her to the makeup room and sat himself down. Harry said, "I forgot to ask you, could you please make this scar disappear if you can."

The lady whose name was Sandra replied, "Sure thing kid, there is nothing that can't be done with makeup."

Another 40 minutes later, Harry could not even recognize himself. He had a wig, which was dirty blond in colour. Sandra had given him colour contact that made his eyes look brown. The natural lines around his eyes and mouth stood out more. It made him look much older. Harry paid her two hundred pounds for her help and made his way to the Leaky Cauldron.

Harry arrived at the leaky cauldron at about 7:45 am. He got in and took a seat facing the north wall. He didn't want to push his luck at being recognized. Gringotts would be open at 8:30 am, so he had a bit of time to kill. He reviewed his to do list, and polished off where it needed to be. As he was reading his list, he distinctly heard two voices about two tables behind him which he recognized immediately.

Harry had his back to them, but he was sure he heard the Ron's and Hermione voices. Not wanting to be recognized, he instead concentrated on their conversation. This turned out to be a rather easy feat as Ron was incapable of any kind of finesse. His approach to people and life in general was that of a bull in heat running through a porcelain shop.

They were talking about their assignment for the order. It apparently involved them prowling the streets and shops of Diagon alley to gather any intelligence on death eater activity. Hermione was complaining about the lack of real intelligent assignment from the order, and Ron said this could be fun. He informed her that it sure beat being cooped up at Grimmauld place like their previous year.

Ron apparently had not fancied keeping Harry company and reporting any anomalies to the order. Hermione apparently still felt guilty about going behind Harry's back like they had. She then stated that if he ever found out, he would go ballistic.

Hermione then told Ron that she didn't think he could take another betrayal. Jesus, no fucking shit Harry thought. Harry then heard Ron tell Hermione that she worried to much. Ron reminded her that they were good at spying because Ginny and Lupin still didn't know that they were in the order. Ron reminded her that Dumbledore knew what he was doing.

Ron reminded her that he was the greatest wizard that he knew and that he must have very good reasons for monitoring Harry. Hermione then looked at her watch and told him that they needed to get on with their assignments. Apparently she felt that if there were death eaters around, they would no doubt be doing business early in the morning. Ron then told her that they would prove to the order that they were capable agents. He reminded her that their scouting was only for a short while. By the following week, they would begin their summer training with Kinsley and Mad Eye.

At this point, Harry was close to completely losing it. He had to get a hold of his emotions; he couldn't afford to explode right now. He stifled his sobs and had tears running down his cheeks again. He had to get some fresh air or else. Harry got up and made his way to the entrance to Diagon Alley. He looked around to make sure no one was watching and put on his invisibility cloak.

Harry would wait for somebody to open the portal. There was no sense using his wand and getting his magical signature recognized. Meanwhile he poured every ounce of energy into controlling his emotions. He now knew that his so-called best friends had been playing him for a sucker since last summer. They obviously were made Order of the Phoenix initiates. All of their cock and bull stories about travelling for the summer were nothing but a front.

God how much more betrayal was he going to endure. 'This is the last FUCKING STRAW,' he thought. When he got a chance, he would turn the tables and teach them all about the meaning of betrayal. From this day forward, he was through with them. Real friends would never do this to each other. It was now very obvious that Dumbledore had bought their loyalty. Harry now truly felt completely cut off from anyone and everything he knew. He owed nothing to those betraying bastards. After everything he did for them and this is how they repaid him.

Harry dug deep into his memories and now had a distinct feeling that maybe his so called close friends had insisted on coming to the DOM in order to keep and eye on him. Harry wouldn't surprised if that slimy old bastard planned everything out from the beginning. Well Harry thought forget them, from this day forth, they were no longer worth his time. If they got into trouble they could deal with it or die, either way he wouldn't give a shit.

Finally an old wizard and his wife came to the portal. An instant later Harry was in Diagon Alley. He carefully walked the streets, making sure that he didn't bump into anybody. Harry needed to get to Gringotts fast. The last thing he needed was to be recognized. Fifteen minutes later he was passed the entrance to the lobby and made his way to the closest public bathroom. Harry took his invisibility cloak off, and made sure that his make up was intact. He looked around for a check out counter. When he found what he was looking for, he went to stand in line to wait his turn at the check out counter.

Harry stood in front of the counter and made a quick sweep of the area. He wanted to make sure that there was no one who could recognize his voice, and said, "Pardon me sir. I would like a tally of all my assets before going to my vault."

The Goblin looked down at him for a minute, and bellowed, "Key Please!"

Harry handed his key to the Goblin. He took the key and then crossed reference it back to his ledger and said, "Ah Mr. Potter, we did not expect you to be here so soon. We just sent our letter this morning. "

Harry looked at the Goblin with a very confused look on his face and said, "What letter?"

The Goblin replied, "The letter concerning the last will and testament of one Sirius Black of course."

Harry felt like a ball of ice his the pit of his stomach and answered back, "Sorry, I was not aware that such things could be handled so quickly in the wizarding world. Where must I go?"

The Goblin gave him a queer look and said, "Please follow the corridor on the North wing and go to the 5th door on your right."

Fair enough, Harry thought. He grabbed his key and followed the Goblin's directions. Harry got to the 5th door, and looked at the plaque _**Will & Trusts**_.

He knocked on the door and a loud voice said, "Enter!"

Harry carefully opened the door and made his way to the Goblin sitting behind the reception desk. He looked at the Goblin and to his utter shock recognized who it was.

Harry said, "Griphook! Is that you?"

The goblin looked at him with a curious look, Harry seeing the Goblins confusion quickly said, "Sorry sir I didn't mean to offend."

Griphook shook his head and replied, "That's not it sir. But most wizards never bother to recognize a Goblins name, let alone what he looks like. Most wizards or witches don't give us the time of day, sir." Griphook finished his last sentence with a bewildered look on his face.

Harry looked at Griphook with a sad face and answered back, "Well I'm not most wizards Griphook. I was raised by muggles and was discriminated all my life. Over the years, I have become friends with an Elf, a Werewolf, a Centaur, a Half Giant, and with your permission I would also like to consider you a friend."

The Goblin looked dumbstruck for a second but smiled or what passed for a smile on a Goblin. It looked more like a bad case of constipation to Harry.

Griphook finally found his voice and said, "I heard from some of our sources that you were indeed a unique wizard Mr. Potter. I would also like to be considered your friend if you want to. Just so you know what is going on, I will be your solicitor today. I will officiate for the will reading and for any other business that you may need. Before we start there is a letter that was left by one Sirius Orion Black. Should his demise come to pass this letter was to be given to you." Griphook picked up the letter with care and gave it to Harry.

Harry looked at the letter afraid to even open it. He was not sure if he could hold it together. After a minute and with shaking hands, Harry picked up the letter and opened it.

_Dear Harry_

_If you are reading this, then I have probably done something incredibly stupid or went where angels fear to tread. What ever happened don't you dare blame yourself for my death? If I died protecting you while fighting death wankers, then I died a happy man. _

_There is no worthier cause than giving your life for someone you love. Your mother and father understood this. Now I can at least look James and Lilly in the eyes without feeling shame. I am so sorry for missing these last 13 years Harry. Because of my impulsive decisions' you got stuck at the Dursleys'. _

_While Dumbledore had me trapped in that god forsaken house, I kept dreaming of how many different ways I could beat the shit out of those pathetic muggles. I would give everything I own, to get those 13 years back. The day we met in the Shrieking Shack was a turning point for me. That day you not only believed me, but you also protected me from making another rash decision. _

_That day Harry I felt the weight of the world come off my shoulders. You have suffered so much for one so young, but you have never given up on anything. Your love of life, your tenacity and your bravery caused me to love you more and more as the days went by. You are truly your father's son. James would be so proud. _

_I love you like you were my own son Harry. The best advice I can give you is get past all the betrayals, get your revenge but in the end move on. Life is so precious and short. Harry, never forget to live your life to its fullest. Meet your true love, and make lots of little Potters. When the time comes, we will see each other again, but not for a very long time, I want you to live to a ripe old age. _

_Never doubt your self-worth Harry, you are deserving of love and respect. I want you to know that you are a very powerful wizard. You will only grow more powerful as time moves on. Just so you know, there was a Prophecy made about you before you were born. I fought many times with Dumbledore to get him to reveal it to you, but he always forced me silent._

_Looking back, I should have told him to screw off. If he hasn't told you yet, then you now know that there is one and you should force Dumbledore to give it to you. Dumbledore may look like he means well Harry, but he has lived too long. He can no longer see the emotional cost of his decisions anymore. He is so caught up with the big picture idea that he has lost sight of the tangibles in life. _

_Remember this Harry in the end how you choose to live your life is entirely up to you. You are caught up in these events. That damn war has taken so much from you just because some maniac has some serious mommy and daddy issues._

_Remember, you don't have to follow Dumbledore to fight this war. You can do it on your own terms. Should something happen to me, I tried to get the paper work approved and get you emancipated. I'm sorry kiddo but I couldn't swing it due to me being a convict and all. _

_Thank god Gringotts doesn't recognize the ministries powers where money and family inheritance are concerned. I guess, I should also thank my dear mother for forgetting to change the family will. She never got around to remove me as sole heir to the Black family fortune before she passed on, Harry! There are other ways to get around the ministry to get certain things done. Ask your investor for some help concerning issues with underage magic. Never underestimate Goblins Harry. They have access to information that would blow your socks off._

_Lastly remember this, there is no light or dark magic. There is only magic and intent. With the money I am leaving you, buy what you need and learn all you can both light and dark magic. The muggles have a saying fight fire with fire. Dumbledore never understood this. My last piece of advice Harry is when you are faced with difficult problems, it helps to think as a Marauder. Learn to think outside of conventional wisdom Harry, think outside of the box._

_Now enough of the mushy stuff. Lets get on with this. I Sirius Orion Black being of sound mind and body hereby bequeath all of my worldly possession to the following people:_

_Harry In case you didn't know. You are filthy rich. Yah Kid, I have asked your solicitor to make sure that you spoil yourself rotten when you leave Gringotts today. I leave you the entire content of the Black Family Vault. That includes all the Jewels, Weapons, books and of course the Galleons. At last count there was __**2,562,357,210**__ Gallons. I also leave you with a condo in Key West Florida, Villa in France, a Cottage in Sweden, and a Manor in Greece. You can get the addresses in the Vault. The view is terrific!_

_Mind you that does not include the value of the Potter family fortune. This is likely to be even bigger than the Blacks. The Potters are a very ancient wizarding family Harry. You may want to check on the status of the Potter inheritance. Last time I checked Dumbledore made himself Guardian of your trust fund. No one can appoint themselves a guardian of the Potter family vault except a Potter. I know that Dumbledore tried, but was told by the Goblins to fuck off. _

_In any case, the guardian ship of your trust vault should have been Remus' job. Just so you know, your parents appointed me first and Remus second to be your guardian. I can only hope that by now Dumbledore has told you about your family inheritance when you were 11 years old. Somehow, I doubt that he did. I might be wrong, but I believe that there is some kind of technicality concerning breach of trust or something like that._

_If you weren't informed of your inheritance then you definitely want to enquire about this. If I recall the jest of the law it states that if any information regarding your inheritance was omitted from you, then you have the right to get him removed as Guardian of your trust fund. You will have to check with the Goblins on that. _

_I also give you co-ownership of Grimmauld place with the last surviving Marauder my good friend Remus Lupin. I have also left the following sums to the following people. They will be contacted throughout the summer for the reading of this will:_

_Remus Lupin 3,000,000 galleons and a cottage in the Scottish Highlands._

_Nymphadora Tonks 3,000,000 galleons_

_Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley, Fred Weasley, George Weasley and Hermione Granger I leave each of you 50,000 for helping you and being you friend over the years. _

_Arthur and Molly Weasley get 500,000 galleons, in recognition of their support for you over the years _

_I also give permission to Dumbledore to continue using Grimmauld place against my better judgment for the Order of the Phoenix. Harry this is just a suggestion but you may want to close the Black family vault and leave everything in the Potter Vault. This will make it easier to manage the Potter family assets and holdings. Well this is it pup._

_With ever lasting Love_

_Sirius Orion Black (A.K.A Padfoot). _

After finishing the reading of the will, Harry completely broke down, and cried like he had never cried before. He felt for all the injustice of the world, all of the wrongs done to him, all of the betrayals and felt such anger as he had never felt before and let go.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh"At that instant Harry's eyes shone like green neon orbs. Suddenly the glass vase in Griphook's office broke. The hanging portraits also split in half. To say that the Goblins were scared was putting it mildly. Harry cried for another 15 minutes and was finally able to get a hold of his emotions. He looked at the mess he had caused and apologized profusely to Griphook and the other Goblins. They said that under the circumstances it was quite all right. No harm was done and the objects were being repaired immediately.

After thinking for a minute Harry asked Griphook why he had never been told of the Potter Vault. Griphook told him that he was suppose to have been told of its existence by his trustee when he turned 11 years of age. If he was not told, then under the laws agreed to by Gringotts and the Wizengamot in the financial decrees of 1496, paragraph 6, subsection E, I quote

"The requirements of the trustee are to notify the inheritor of his family holdings within a year of his eleventh birthday."

Griphook explained that this was done so that the inheritor could learn to manage his assets and be prepared to handle his family businesses by the time he or she reached the age of majority. At that time they could claim their full inheritance.

"By not notifying you of your holdings, Mr. Dumbledore is in breach of the trustee agreement he entered into upon the death of Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Therefore you can legally remove his access to your accounts and transfer control to you," Griphook offered.

Harry hissed, "Do so immediately!"

Griphook replied, "Sir it will take several hours to get the paper work completed, do you wish to wait?"

Harry answered, "Yes there are still many things to do over here. Griphook I plan on doing a lot of shopping both in the magical and the muggle world and will likely be making some very expensive purchases. Do you have some kind of system established where I don't have to carry a huge bag of galleons everywhere I go."

Griphook smiled and said, "Yes sir, we have a muggle credit card equivalent to a platinum rating. We can put up to **200,000** galleon daily spending limit to it. We also have a magical equivalent. It is quite new and it is accepted by all of the magical shops. This card will have a maximum of **300,000** galleons spending limit."

Griphook looked at the confused look on Harry face and elaborated by saying, "These amounts are determined based on your net value Mr. Potter. These limits are set so that you don't go over your earned interest and feed on the principle. Just so you know, both of your credit cards will only work with your magical signature."

Griphook continued and said, "Both cards will also show you as being 18 years of age. Do not worry young Lord, they are completely safe. There will be a 4 galleon per month administrative fee of course. Due to favoured client status, we will also issue you a set of 20 Gringotts bank slips that will allow you to spend up to a maximum of 1% of your total net worth. We can also issue you a passport and a muggle I.D. that show you are legal. These cards are none traceable, and they will avoid any sticky muggle legalities in the future."

Harry gave Griphook a feral smile and replied "That will more that satisfy my needs Griphook. I'll take it all."

Griphook then asked Harry to pick a motif for each card. Harry picked a Lily for his muggle card and a Gryffin for his wizard card. Griphook activated the Gringotts seal and asked Harry to put his thumb on the silver looking square at the top left hand corner of each card. Harry completed the ritual and felt a glow coming off each card.

Griphook continued and said, "Now Mr. Potter your cards have been activated. They have been imprinted with your magical signature . No one will be able to use these cards except you."

Now that Harry knew about the Potter family fortune, he wanted to know the status of his inheritance so he said, " Griphook, what is the current value of the Potter inheritance and what are its holdings?"

Griphook smiled at Harry and bellowed. "Elmrook! I need the Potter Portfolio immediately."

Elmrook came back ten minutes later and gave the ledger to Griphook. Griphook opened the ledger and examined it for a bit and finally said, "As of this month Mr. Potter your family assets have a net cash value of _**3,823,470,200**_ galleons. This does not include the significant lands and properties holdings, jewels, precious crystals, books, weapons and other items too numerous to mention which you now possess."

Harry nearly fainted on the spot but managed to bellow, "Holy crap Griphook!"

Griphook chuckled to himself and was amused by the Potter heir's reaction. He finally said, "Yes Mr. Potter you are currently one of the top 3 richest Wizard in Europe. "Also, may I point out that you are one of Gringotts most valued customer sir."

Harry let the information sink in, and after a while said, "Griphook who is my current financial advisor and who appointed him?"

Griphook replied, "Give me a second Sir". Griphook came back with another ledger. "Your current financial adviser is Goldbrick and Albus Dumbledore appointed him."

Harry thinking out loud said, "Well Dumbledore you slimy sonavabitch, you managed to betray me one more time." Griphook meanwhile, was quite intrigued by the hate that Mr. Potter seemed to be displaying at the mention of Dumbledore's name.

Harry noticed the inquisitive look on the Goblin's face, and for some unknown reason decided to educate the Goblin about his life up to now. Harry proceeded to tell him all of the things that Dumbledore had done to him. From the Dursleys on to DOM. Griphook was shocked to know that one of the richest wizard in Europe had been treated so shoddy. Harry didn't know what made him do it, but he found talking to Griphook about his trials to be quite uplifting.

Harry decided to make a life altering decision right there on the spot and said, "Griphook, would a financial adviser appointed by me to look over my assets be considered a full time job for a Gringotts employee?"

Griphook replied, "Yes sir, In fact managing your assets as one of the biggest account currently held at Gringotts comes with a lot of prestige and perks sir."

Griphook gave Harry a funny look and said, "Why do you ask sir?"

Harry smiled and said, "Well you see, I find myself trusting you. You have always been very courteous and helpful to me. I have a 6th sense when it comes to people, and I find you trustworthy. If you would be willing, I would like to hire you as my personal financial adviser."

Griphook looked at Harry and nearly fell off his chair. Harry smiling said, "So, will you accept? "

Griphook could not believe his good fortune. This would go a long way in increasing his status among Goblins, not to mention that he really liked the young wizard to boot. Griphook felt that he had the seasoning and knowledge to properly manage an account of this size.

Griphook came to attention and said, "Yes Mr. Potter, I accept. This is a great honour that you have shown me. I will not fail you, sir." Harry smiled and signalled Griphook to continue.

Griphook said, "Know this Mr. Potter, managing your account will be a full time job as it is vast and spread out over many countries. In doing this you will become my primary focus. My wealth and status as a Goblin will now be tied to you. Let me assure you that I will be guarding your interest with extreme prejudice. Lastly you may not know this, but no Goblin In recent memory would remember a wizard trusting a Goblin to this degree. You are very special Mr. Potter." Little did Harry know at the time how far reaching his decision on that day would affect the wizarding world.

Harry looked up at Griphook and realized that he had been holding his breath and said, "Thank you Griphook, I think we will do very well together. I will be going down to visit the Potter Vault while you finish the paper work. When I come back we will sign the remaining documents."

Harry thought for a minute and said, "Griphook do you know if the contents of the Black vault have been transferred to the Potter vault yet?"

Griphook replied, "Yes Sir, We finished this morning."

Harry smiled and replied, "Very well thank you."

Griphook bellowed, "Zorak Mr. Potter will need a ride to the Potter family vault."

Zorak came to attention and replied, "Right away Sir!"

Harry followed Zorak to the cart and they proceeded to the Potter vault. Harry noticed that they had already passed his original trust vault and were going deeper and deeper underground. He also noticed trolls, and a type of Dragon he had never seen or heard off before. Finally after what felt like 20 minutes had passed, he started to notice names like Nott, Crab, Goyle, Zabini, Snape, Dumbledore, Abbott, Fudge…. est.

Zorak noticed Harry looking at the vaults and informed him that they were now in the deepest part of Gringotts and that the Vaults from 50 on downwards belonged to the oldest pureblood families. Finally they reached Vault door 2. This really startled Harry, he did not know what to think? Zorak again noticed his confused look

"Mr. Potter, you may not know this, but obviously as indicated by the Vault numbers, your family is one of the oldest pureblood families in wizarding Europe."

They exited the cart, and made their way to a small dais. It was made up of a 4-foot black marble pillar with an obsidian bowl carved with ancient Celtic rune sitting on top of it. The goblin instructed Harry that he would have to take the knife and allow some of his blood to be absorbed by the bowl. By doing this, it will cause the ancient protection wards to either acknowledge him as the true Heir of the Potter bloodline or kill him.

Harry walked up to the marble pillar, and did as Zorak instructed him to do. When the blood hit the inside of the bowl there was a crimson pulsing light surrounding the vault. The light changed from red to gold to a soft blue. "The vault has acknowledged you as the true Potter Heir," replied Zorak.

Zorak continued and said, "You may now pass the ward and enter the Vault. You must put your right hand on the portal by the Gryphon, and yell "Potter Heir." The Vault should open for you."

Harry did as he was told and within seconds of placing his hands on the portal and yelling his last name, there was a large grinding sound as if the vault had not been open for a very long time. There was a strong swishing sound as fresh air suddenly filled a large cavern.

Harry had imagined all sort of thing when he found out that he was the heir to a purebloods vault. Those thoughts were nothing compared to the reality of the situation. The moment he walked past the vault doors, the first thought that came to mind was the enormous size of the vault. There must have been hundreds of black boxes engraved with magical runes and pictures. The boxes were made of a shiny black granite and were 6"X 6"X3" stacked 5 high and filled to the brim with galleons, sickles and knuts.

Harry also noticed on the left side of the vault there were about 12 of these same granite boxes, but these were smaller. They were filled with diamond, sapphire, emeralds, rubies, and amethysts. Further down on the left hand side of the wall, there was a huge bookshelf, filled with books. As he approached the bookshelves, Harry noticed that it was filled with ancient tomes on subject ranging from charms, transfiguration, DADA, Dark Arts, Runes, Arithmancy, Blood Magic and Rituals. There was a pulpit in front of the book collection. It had a ledger of all the titles and a quick summary of the books stored there.

Zorak mentioned that some of these books had never been in publication and were extremely rare. How he knew this, Harry had no idea. Further down from the bookshelves were several tables laden with weapons. Again there was a pulpit with a ledger indicating the types of weapons available and the magic they carried. Harry tried a few of them to see if any of them would grow on him. Unfortunately none of them felt comfortable. They seemed to big or to cumbersome. He wanted something like the Japanese Katana that he had seen watching one of the muggle WWII movies. Harry decided to pass for now on acquiring any vault weapons.

Harry kept walking when he noticed a very old trunk lying at the end of the weapons table. He opened it and noticed that the trunk had two deep compartments filled with what looked like different metal and other ore samples. Odd, he thought? There were two books written by one Damien Potter. One of the books was on mining theory, and the other was on refining ore's and metals. The last book talked about purifying metals and minerals. Harry flipped through some of the pages and was immediately fascinated by the subject.

These books seemed to contain many spells he had never heard of before. There was a third book which was on theory of weapons making and crafting. Harry might have to get a modern book specifically on crafting Japanese Katanas but these books would go a long way in explaining the theory. Harry thought that he would need other weapons outside of a wand pretty soon.

One thing for sure Harry thought, most death eaters nowadays would never conceive of an attack by a sword. Knowing how to fight with a sword could help as an element of surprise. Since none of the available weapons suited him, he decided that he would craft his own in due time, even if he had to go and mine the right material himself. Looking at the print data on the books, it read printed in 1638.

'Wow, these go back some ways,' he thought. He would have to see if Flourish and Blots had more updated versions of these titles.

At the back end of the wall he noticed another trunk. This one looked to be only a few decades old. There was a letter sitting at the top of the chest. He went to it and looked at the letter; it had his name on it. He opened the letter and began to read:

_**To Harry James Potter**_

_Hi son, if you are reading this letter, then we failed, and never had the chance to see you grow up. We are so sorry son. I just hope we died saving you. Albus told us that Voldemort was after us because of a prophecy made about you, by no less than Trelawney herself._

_I have never put much faith in these things, but apparently Voldemort does. Who knows, maybe they are true, who is to say. In the end it doesn't matter your mother and I did the only thing we could to protect you, we went into hiding. Your mother and I just want you to know that we want you to be happy and lead as normal a life as much as possible. _

_**Hi baby, this is your mother. I know that I am biased but you are the most beautiful baby in the world. We love you so much and will do anything for you, my love. There is so much we want to tell you, but how do we fit in a lifetime of experience and advice into one letter. The answer is we can't. **_

_**The best we can do is to make sure that you are with someone of our choosing who will love you and protect you unconditionally. Our first choice was Sirius Black your godfather. He loves you so much Harry, and will do anything for you. Our second choice is Remus Lupin, we know of his monthly affliction, but arrangements have been made to circumvent this. Albus Dumbledore the Headmaster of Hogwarts knows of our wishes and assured us that they would be carried out.**_

_**At no time are you to go live with my hateful sister! Well enough about that. My only wish for you my son is for you to be happy. Remember Harry, we may not be there in body but our spirit will always watch over you. Have a wonderful life my son. **_

_Hey Pronglet, what your mother said dido for me. I love you beyond words son. The first time I saw you I was prouder than a Peacock in a henhouse. In case you haven't been told, you are the son of a Marauder and in this trunk are several diaries detailing all of the charms, and transfiguration techniques we used in the pursuit of our exploits. _

_These include notes from becoming an animagus to creating the Marauders map. Have fun son, and remember that life is nothing with out laughter. What ever you do, don't let your mother know that you have these. Who am I kidding, she probably knows already? I could never fool her. She was always the brain in the family. _

_One more thing before I forget, this trunk has four compartments, the last two have pretty decent storage space, a closet and several large bookcases. There is a lightweight charm and a reduction included with it. It's dead useful when doing long term shopping. The charms Reducio, and Engorgio are used to enlarge and reduce the trunk. There is also a permanent lightweight charm that comes with it. The trunk is also charmed to be weather resistant and also resistant to most spells. The trunk is charmed so that only the owner can access the trunk. To bind the trunks to your magical signature just say Manifestat- Omnis- Milare. _

_**Goodbye Son**_

_**Love Mom and Dad**_

Harry just starred at the letter and began to sob. Man this has been one hell of an emotional roller coaster he thought to himself. He let the tears fall for about 10 minutes. It felt good to let it out of his system. He let himself feel the loss of his parents once again.

God, he would have given anything to have his parents still alive. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and then collected himself. He then remembered the part about his mother's wishes for him, and suddenly a blinding hatred rose in his chest. Good old Dumbledore managed to betray them also, Harry thought.

'As God is my witness, I will find a way to get even with him,' Harry swore to the fates. He pocketed the letter and made several copies. He then asked Zorak if he could put a reduction charm on the ore trunk. He would store its content within one of the newer trunk compartments. Zorak did as he was told and reduced the ore trunk. Harry then stored the ore in the first compartment of his new trunk.

Harry then went back to the crystal bins and as he was allowed to remove those he picked up a good portion of each gems. He stored these in the second compartment of his trunk. Many gems were used to store and focus magical energy, so he thought they may come in handy during his studies. He then walked over to the book shelves and selected a book on every field of magic available in his library. Many of them were books carried over from the Black estate.

Harry chose books on advanced Charms and Transfiguration. He noticed a potions book called Tomes Asana Potentate also know as the grand bible of potion. He also picked a book on ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Magical Theory, Apparating, Hit wizards/DADA, and Dark Arts. He went into his trunk and stored all of the books on the available bookshelves. He ended up picking over 100 books in all. He got out of his trunk and closed the lid. Now time to make this baby mine and only mine, so he put his hand on the chest's hand portal and pronounced _Manifestat- Omnis- Milare._ A purplish aura surrounded the trunk for a few seconds. Then leaving his palm on the hand portal he said _Reducio_, the trunk shrunk to the size of a deck of cards. He took one last look at the incredible vault and exited.

Harry could not believe his good fortune so far. He thought of the practicality of having a multi compartment trunk that was charmed to be lightweight and reduces to fit in his pocket. This would be perfect to store all of his purchases today. He got thinking about Moody's wizard trunk with its seven compartments at the end of the triwizard tournament.

Harry began to formulate an idea. His thoughts came back to finding a place to stay. He thought that a live in trunk might be the perfect solution to many of his problems. If he could acquire a wizard's trunk like Moody's but more advanced, then his problems were solved. He needed a wizard trunk that had a fully developed living and training quarters. It also had to be portable.

If Harry learned to carry out the Fidelius charm on his trunk, then he could carry his home and be safe anywhere he went. This would be the ultimate solution, he thought. Harry would borrow from a turtle's strategy. Carry your home wherever you go. After this little epiphany, Harry got a little smile on his face and gathered his remaining things.

Before he left his vault, Harry noticed a small oak box with runes on it. The box was sitting on the far side table. There was an engraving on it that said Properties. He opened the drawer and noticed that there were about fifteen parchments. They were Potter owned real estate. He decided to pick up the box and look at the parchments later on.

Harry figured he was done for now and said, "All right Zorak, lets go see Griphook." They reached the lobby and proceeded to Griphook's office to finish off the remaining paper work. Griphook noticed two people coming his way and noticed his new partner and said, "Mr. Potter, were you able to get what you needed from your Vault?"

Harry smiled and replied, "Yes Griphook, Zorak was very helpful."

Griphook smiled back and replied, "Good, we have the documents ready to remove one Albus Dumbledore as your guardian and appoint yourself as trustee and myself as account manager. Please sign the following pages."

Harry signed the papers with a fanatical glee. Removing the headmaster as his trustee was the first step in many to come to remove that bastard from his life. He was now the sole trustee and declared Griphook to be henceforth his personal financial advisor, manager and official contact at Gringotts.

Harry thought for a second and decided to take a chance and said, "Griphook, as you know some of my personal history with Voldemort and the fact that he is back. I am trying to find a way so avoid the ministry and Dumbledore's constant interruptions. I need to find a way to do magic without being detected for underage magic use. I also need to find more time to properly train. Do you know of any contacts that could help me circumvent ministry meddling. "

Griphook gave him a feral grin and replied, " Mr. Potter, one thing we Goblins have long know is that if the price is right most things are possible in a magical world. I'll have a list of contacts for you right away sir."

Griphook added, "Rest assured Harry, all of our business stays out of any government control and records. You only need an outlet until you reach your legal age next July. I'll have a list drawn up for you within 10 minutes. "

Harry had found a whole new level of respect for Goblins. Every time they could stick it to the ministry they would gladly step up to the plate. They had suffered just as much if not more than he had at their hands. Yes, Harry thought, he had made a very good decisions dealing with the Goblins. He also remembered to ask Griphook how long they had by law to inform Dumbledore of these new arrangements?

Griphook told him that by law he had up to August 20 to inform Dumbledore of the Changes. Harry liked that date. He hoped to be well into his plans and be free of Dumbledore by the time he found out.


	5. Chapter 4 Shopping Part 1

**Chapter 4 " Shopping Part 1"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

_**sss**_ blah, blah, blah _**sss**_ Speaking to Snake.

By the time he left Gringotts, it was 11:30 am. He decided to head over _to Madame Malkin's Robes for Fine Occasion_. He needed a cloak with a hood as he was going into Knockturn Alley next. He had to go unnoticed as much as possible even with his current disguise. It never hurt to have extra protection, he thought. Harry entered the store and looked around a bit, he saw all manners of apparel and decided right there and than to make his first impulsive buy and get a complete new wardrobe. He noticed that they now had a whole section dedicated to muggle fashion. Finally a clerk came over and introduced herself as Stacy.

The clerk said, "Hi, may I help you?"

Harry smiled and said, "Yes, I'll need a whole new wardrobe and I need the following items." He gave her a full rundown of what he was looking for.

"I'll take 5 dress Robes. The first is to be black with jade green trims. The second will be royal blue with a sliver phoenix on the back. The third will be black with sapphire blues trims and a drawing of Stonehenge in the back. The fourth robe is to be burgundy with gold trims. The last robe will be emerald green with a depiction of the northern constellations embroider in blues and silver."

Seeing that the clerk was still writing he continued. "I'll also take 5 working robes, 5 cloaks with deep hoods, 5 heavy winter cloaks, 3 potion robes, and if you have them I'll also take 2 flying cloaks. I would like the best magical cloth that money can buy for all of my clothes. "

The clerk whose jaw had dropped was looking at him with a queer look said, "Well sir, our best cloth is Acromantula silk. It's very light and nearly indestructible."

Seeing a look of indecision on his face Stacy added, "It's resistant against many jinxes and curses."

She flipped the card over and while reading said, "This cards says that it's also temperature regulating."

Stacy looked at his present clothes and she narrowed her eyes at him and said, "Just so you know, this cloth is rather rare and highly expensive."

Harry looked into her eyes and seeing the sceptical look etched into her face and remembering his promises to his godfather said, "Don't worry about the cost."

Stacy looked at his face, and seeing that he was dead serious, couldn't believe her luck. She was going to make a killing on this commission alone.

Harry remembered Cho's clothes and added, "Before I forget, I would like you to include your entire charms package to all my clothes."

Harry picked up the charms list and gave it a detailed look. He made up his mind and said, "I would like the self cleaning, water repellent, and the self adjusting charm. I would like the cloaks to have an automatic disillusionment charm for the face area."

Harry felt stupid asking this but he decided not to take any chances and said, "I was wondering? Does your muggle collection come with any magical charms as well? "

"Yes sir they do. Our muggle line carries the same charms package as our regular magical wear."

"Very well, I'll take 8 sets of jeans. That will be 3 blue, 3 black and 2 beige. I'll also take 2 camouflage coloured pants, and 10 t-shirts. Make 5 of these black with the Runes package. Could I have two of the navy blue ones with the cobra drawings in the back? I'll also take two of the plain emerald ones with the black dragons' drawings in the back. Finally, I'll take the plain red looking one. "

Harry looked around some more and said, "I would also like a fishnet sports shirt, 2 black leather coats, 10 polo shirts, 3 black, 3 blue, 2 green and 2 red. I would also like 5 formal muggle pants, 3 cotton blue, and 2 charcoal wool. I'll finish off with 3 pairs of trainers."

Stacy was writing his order and added, "Just so you know, the trainers are magically charmed to repel water. They also have a permanent temperature control and have a silencing charm on them."

Harry looked up and gave her the o.k. to tally his bill.

Stacy doubled checked her figures and said, "Your final bill comes to 650 Galleons."

Harry simply nodded at Stacy.

Stacy quickly ran out back to show the order to Madame Malkin. A few moments later, they both appeared, and assured him that with such a large order they would make it their top priority and have it filled out later that afternoon.

"That fine, would it be possible to get one of my cloaks right away? I'll be back for the rest at around 3 pm, will that be acceptable? "

Madame Malkin thought about it for a minute and finally replied, "Yes, that will be fine, sir."

Stacy took about 10 minutes to make sure that she had all of his measurements and proceeded to ring up the bill. He paid, and waited another 20 minutes to get his cloak. He walked out of the store and noticed it was already 12:30 pm.

Harry was starting to get pretty hungry and decided to treat himself to _**Methos Fine Greek Dining.**_ He remembered Cho mentioning an upscale Greek restaurant in Diagon alley. He walked another 12 minutes until he found the restaurant. He noticed that the establishment wasn't overly busy. He shrugged and decided to give it a try. The Leaky Cauldron was likely to be a lot busier and he risked being detected if he went there.

Once he was seated he quickly ordered a butter beer while taking his time perusing the menu. Harry decided to get himself a whole quarter brazed lamb with a Mediterranean lemon flavoured lentil/rice dish with black olives and chocolate mousse for desert. An hour later he walked out of the restaurant filled to the gills. He made sure he had his cloak properly fastened and carried on towards Knockturn Alley.

He looked at the list Griphook had given him. He was looking for Glenwald Street. It was one of the many little side streets off Knockturn Alley. The particular store he was looking for was named _**Earth Root. **_According to Griphook, it was a shop that had both magical pets and watches of all sorts. He finally entered Knockturn alley, and walked in with as much confidence as he could muster.

Harry decided to make himself as menacing as possible. This would help keep the less savoury characters from bothering him too much, or so he hoped. He needed to make himself angry in order to look menacing. That last part wasn't overly difficult; all he needed to do was to think of Dumbledore and his friend's betrayals. It didn't take long for a deep rage to well up inside him.

Unknown to Harry his eyes began pulsing with an eerie neon green glow. He proceeded down the alley, and to his surprise no one came near him. He wondered if this was because of his disguised looks or if it was due to daylight. Harry was pretty sure that it was due to daytime. The more nefarious life forms of Knockturn Alley tended to only come out at night.

Harry walked for about 2 blocks and finally noticed the entrance to Glenwald Street. He entered the street and walked another 10 minutes before he found the store he was looking for. Not knowing what to expect, he entered the store and decided to look around. The first thing he noticed was the low lighting; it gave the place a really creepy feeling. He noticed that the first part of the store carried all kinds of armbands, necklaces and all sorts of enchanted stones, watches and time keeps.

The second part of the store seemed to be dedicated to magical pets. There were snakes, bats, owls, scorpions and a few other life forms that he didn't recognize. He surmised that most of these weren't entirely legal. Looking at the animal section, he thought about getting himself another pet. He knew it would be a long time before he saw anybody, and surmised that Dumbledore would try his hardest to keep him isolated from everyone, like his previous summer.

Harry needed someone or something to talk to. He came to the conclusion that he required a snake. He loved Hedwig, but even thought she could understand him it seemed a one-way street from his viewpoint. He could actually communicate with a snake.

Finally a gentleman sauntered over and introduced himself as Vladimir Negev and asked, "May I be of service Mr?"

Harry looked at the offered hand and gripped it in a firm handshake, and replied "My name is of no consequence, I was referred to you by other elements of the wizarding world who have a keen interest in wizard finances."

"Ah, I see." The man replied with a curious look on his face.

Harry put on his best poker face and said, "Now let's get down to business, shall we? First I would like to acquire another pet, specifically a magical snake if you have them."

"Certainly sir, please follow me."

Harry followed the man and as he approached the snakes he could make out their chattering. Some were hungry and voicing their displeasure. Others were bored and seemed to chat about hunting stories. There were viper, cobras, pythons, black mambas...est., as he looked at them, Harry didn't see one that particularly appealed to him.

Harry turned towards the storeowner and with a very unimpressed look on his face said, "Is this all you have for snakes? I must say so far I'm not very impressed."

The man seemed to wrestle with himself and finally asked, "How do I know that you are not some ministry scumbag trying to score a raid?"

Harry thought about it for a moment and finally said "What can I do to prove to you that I'm not some ministry lowlife?"

"I have a vial of veritaserum. If you are willing to be interrogated under its influence, I'll be inclined to believe you."

"No way!" answered Harry. "This could be a trick on your part to gain information out of me that I do not wish to divulge."

Harry thought for a moment and said," Do you have anything else besides veritaserum?"

The man narrowed his eyebrows, and with a calculating look replied, "Well I do have another type of truth serum that will only work on yes and no answers. It only last half an hour but that should be sufficient for the type of questioning I have in mind."

"Let me warn you right now, sonny. If you happen to be a ministry agent you will not get out of this alley alive. "

Harry narrowed his eyes at the implied threat. He thought for a moment and felt he had to meet the guy at least halfway to get anywhere, "All right! I'll take your truth serum."

The man went into his den and came back with a yellow liquid. The owner said, "Four drops is all it takes." Harry held out his tongue and took the serum. Within seconds of taking the serum, Harry felt a slight tingling feeling in his body.

After five minutes the man asked, "Are you a ministry agent or Auror?"

"No."

"Have you ever worked for any wizarding agency?"

Harry answered "No."

"Do you have enough funds to carry out any business dealings with me?"

Harry made sure his hand made contact with his wand, and answered, "Yes."

The owner asked, "Are you a death eater?"

"No."

The owner seemed satisfied and gave him the antidote. Harry felt the slight fog lifting from his head and looked into the owners' eyes. The man gave him a calculating look and finally said, "Follow me."

Harry simply nodded and followed the man down a set of stairs. They stopped in front of a bare wall. The man uttered some weird incantation and door suddenly appeared. Harry surmised that it was an undetectable secret room. The owner waived his wand, and a blue light came on. Harry heard the door click. Harry entered the strange room. The place had very little lighting but enough to make out the contents.

Harry turned towards the left wall and immediately recognized the dragon eggs. There were several glass cages, which contained lethifolds, pixies, and some strange coloured snakes. He noticed one snake that was in a separate cage from all of the others. It was a beautiful four-foot long cobra. It was indigo in colour and had the deepest sapphire coloured eyes he had ever seen on a snake. On top of its crest there was some kind of black motif that resembled scorpion stingers? He asked Vladimir what type of snake it was, and all the man said was that it had been captured in some ancient Egyptian tomb. The only other bit of information is that it killed some young person in roughly 30 seconds.

Harry approached the snake very carefully, and noticed Vladimir was getting really nervous. Finally, Harry hissed.

_**sss**_ Hello _**sss**_

The Snake whipped its head as if in great surprise and replied, ss You speak the language? ss

_**sss**_ Yes, I'm a Parseltongue. I would like to extend my greeting to you and tell you that you are very beautiful. I can't help noticing that you don't look very happy? Do you have a name? _**sss**_ Replied Harry.

The snake seemed very intrigued, and simply looked at him. Harry was starting to think that he had insulted the snake somehow. Snakes were very vain and shallow, he remembered.

The snake suddenly bowed its head in his direction and said, _**sss**_ The old ones called me Anubis. Young one I am honoured to meet you. It has been so very long that a master has spoken with me. I have tried speaking to many humans since I woke up from the great sleep, but none of them understood me until now._**sss**_

Harry was curious, _**sss**_ I am sorry, but why are you calling me a master? _**sss**_

_**sss **_Because only snake speakers were our masters. Young one, my kind is born with the ability to have racial memories passed on to us by our forbearer. I can remember a time when snake speakers were common. I do not understand this new place._**sss**_

Harry thought back to his care of magical creatures lessons, but could honestly say he had never encountered a snake like him before. Harry looked back towards the snake and hissed, _**sss**_ I have never heard of your kind before. I can feel that you are magical though. _**sss**_

The snake bowed again and replied, _**sss **_The high masters of the hot sands created and bred us young one. We were created to protect our masters and the sacred temple of knowledge. _**sss**_

Harry hissed back, _**sss **_Where are these temples now? _**sss**_

_**sss **_From what I can remember, they were destroyed during the great war a very long time ago._**sss**_

Harry was now very intrigued. If he understood the snake correctly the temples no longer existed. Their destruction must have happened a long time ago. This species must be incredibly rare to live that long, he thought.

The snake looked at the young human and hissed, _**sss**_ Our ancient masters spoke middle snake such as you. They also discovered and learned high snake. This is our most ancient tongue. Magical snakes use it as a battle language. _**sss**_

R_itual parseltongue for waging battle if you are wondering+_

_**sss**_ Do you speak high snake young one? _**sss**_

Harry hissed back, _**sss**_ I afraid I don't, but I would be honoured to learn it. You said that it is needed for waging battle what does this mean? _**sss**_ Harry asked.

_**sss**_ Learning the high tongue, would allow you to cast ancient dark spells. These spells will cast powerful hexes, jinxes, charms and call forth powerful dark creatures to fight on your behalf. _**sss**_

By then, Harry eyebrows nearly reached the top of his hairline and hissed back, _**sss**_ Very impressive, great one. _**sss**_

The snake looked pleased with the compliment and hissed, _**sss**_ We are capable of many feats young master. _**sss**_

_**sss**_ Such as? _**sss **_Countered Harry.

_**sss**_ Our creators gave us the ability to defend and augment our masters' mind. We can keep enemies from entering their mind while they sleep or wage battle. We can also help them launch mind attacks on their enemies._**sss**_

That sounds like occlumency and legillimency Harry thought. He wondered what else the snake could do.

_**sss**_ Great one, these are indeed powerful talents. What else can you do? _**sss**_ Harry replied.

_**sss**_ When bonded to our master, we can teach them to read and interpret magical auras if they are predisposed for the talent. I have already scanned your mind young one, and know that you possess this talent in its full form. _**sss**_

Harry was speechless. He definitely had to develop that one. This could really help in duels. He was brought back from his thoughts by more hissing.

_**sss**_ My scan shows your magical aura to be blinding mix of green and white mixed with black and red._**sss**_

Harry whose curiosity was now fully peeked hissed back, _**sss**_ What do the colours mean?_**sss**_

_**sss**_ Young master this means that you are very powerful magically._**sss**_

_**sss **_I must say, I'm very impressed with your talents so far._**sss**_

The snake hissed back, _**sss **_There is more to our talents young one. When bonded we also create a telepathic connection to our master. This gift allows us to talk to each other over great distance. Our primary role is to defend our charge and obey all commands. We also scan people who are in contact with you for harmful thought or treachery._**sss**_

Harry hissed, _**sss **_Your talents would indeed be very useful to me. _**sss**_

_**sss **_Young one my scan have revealed that you have many of the qualities that the ancients highly prised from their pupils. You have intelligence, cunning, bravery and are very powerful magically. It would be an honour to bond with you young master. If we bond, my venom will not be able to harm you._**sss**_

Harry quickly realized the benefits of bonding with such a powerful snake. He would be a very valuable companion to have. He could certainly help him protect his mind, until he got a decent grasp of occlumency and legillimency. The most obvious benefit he could see what that he would be able to learn ancient and powerful magic. Harry knew he had been very lucky in his encounters with Voldemort. One thing for sure, the next time he met Voldemort, he wanted to have a few aces up his sleeve.

Harry finally hissed, _**sss **_What do I have to do to bond with you great one?_**sss**_

_**sss**_ Take a knife and nick your finger. Let five drops of your blood spill into my mouth. This will ensure that my venom will never harm you._**sss**_

Harry asked the storeowner if he could sterilize a small ritual blade and lend it to him. Vladimir shook himself out of his stupor, nodded and went to a small cherry cabinet and pulled out a small platinum blade with small diamonds in the hilt and cast a sterilizing charm. Harry did as he was told, and let five drops of his blood seep into the snake's mouth. Within seconds, the snake glowed a deep burgundy red aura for about ten seconds and then it faded. Vladimir whose face seemed to have gone a shade paler quickly cast a healing charm on his finger.

_**sss**_ Repeat the following words SaaaassssSeeeekkk SassssSeeesss Saaaakkkkouuurrr. Never reveal Tiamat teachings to the infidel and may our bond last into the afterlife. _**sss**_

After the sacred ritual words were intoned, there was an indigo glow surrounding both of them for several seconds and then it was gone. He then asked Anubis if he would like to wrap himself around him for warmth.

_**sss**_ Yes master, this place is cold and I feel lethargic._**sss**_

Anubis crawled up his arm, and twisted himself such that his head was resting comfortably on his shoulder. In this fashion, Harry was able to hide him easily by simply pulling his hood up.

While this was going on, Vladimir was shocked to see the young man speak parseltongue. This was indeed a boy he didn't want to double cross. He remembered reading about parseltongues. He knew of two other parseltongue. One was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and the other was the Potter boy. This young man would be the third parseltongue that he knew off. It was a very uncommon gift, he remembered.

Harry looked up toward Vladimir and said, "I have another question to ask you?"

"Go ahead" Replied Vladimir.

"Well you see… I need to buy some time, if you know what I mean?"

Vladimir sat there looking at the boy for a good minute and finally said, "I see, well there are certainly ways to get around that, perhaps if I show you what I have?" He went back into another room, and opened up a safe. He took out a large mahogany box and made his way back to the counter.

"Come here young man." Harry obeyed and made his way towards the box. He definitely recognized the instruments lying in its velvet containers. He had seen similar model in his third year at Hogwarts.

"I see you have several time turners. What is their maximum range?"

Vladimir replied, "The best ones can only go back three days. According to my sources, the ministry has more powerful ones, but they are nearly impossible to acquire."

Looking at these time turners, Harry knew that they weren't what he was looking for. He needed a lot more time than what the store owner had to offer. "I'm sorry Vladimir, but these are simply not adequate. I need a lot more time than what your models can provide."

Vladimir looked at the young man and wondered why he needed more time than these models could offer. He asked Harry, "Son, why are you looking for a lot more time?"

Harry looked at the man for a minute, and decided that he would lose nothing by loosely working the truth, and replied, "You see sir, my whole family was killed by death eaters, I swore a blood oath to avenge them, but I need time to train so that I can kill them."

Vladimir absorbed the young man's explanation, and his face seemed to take on a faraway look. He remembered his young daughter Elena. She had been visiting a friend on her birthday16 years ago. Her friend's parents had been fighting the dark lord for many years. There had been a raid by death eaters the day of her visit. The manor had been destroyed and his only daughter had been captured. They had tortured and killed her. On that day a part of his soul had died.

He knew he wasn't a strong wizard, but he wanted to avenge his daughters' killers at any cost. He vowed that some day, he would find a way to pay them back using the skills he knew he had. He was a good negotiator, and over the years had acquired many interesting objects to help fight these bastards. This young man may be what he was looking for to avenge his daughter. He might even be able to get a good deal out of it.

Harry noticed the faraway look on the storeowner, and said in a bit of a forceful manner, "Sir!"

Vladimir was suddenly brought back to the present. After a bit of an internal struggle, he said," I may have something for you, but just so you know, this is a one of a kind item, it is extremely expensive, and the reason I didn't bring it out is that I have not had anybody who has had the need to use it, nor the coin to afford it."

"How much does it cost and what is it?"

Very well Vladimir answered, "The cost is 200,000 galleons. I know the price is steep, but it's one of a kind. As I said, the ministry can't trace this type of magic."

Harry pulled out his bank slip to show him how much he could spend. Vladimir's eyebrows nearly went to his hairline. "Very well," he said, "I'll be right back."

Vladimir went back to another storeroom, and pulled up an old beat up carpet. He then cast a few spells, and suddenly a trap door appeared out of nowhere. He pulled out a special key and put it the lock. He opened the trap door, and disappeared. After about five minutes, he came back out carrying a 5 foot mahogany box. Intrigued by the box, Harry slowly made his way to the counter. Vladimir looked at Harry, and opened the box. Vladimir pulled out the most interesting and beautiful crystal contraption that Harry had ever seen.

Harry was looking at a four-foot high pedestal, which was holding a large crystal. The base was in the shape of a Horntail's front paw. The end where the crystal was attached looked like a three-clawed hand. The shaft of the pedestal was about 2 inches in diameter and was made up of the blackest material that Harry has ever seen. There seemed to be all sorts of runes inscribed on it. The clawed hand was made of some bluish silver type material.

The crystal itself was the most intriguing part. It has the shape of a Hexagonal sphere. It was about 8 inches in diameter and the crystal itself was a deep sapphire blue. At the centre of the crystal, there was a pitch-black ball about 2 inches in diameter. Silver filaments were connected from the Hexagon points to the centre of the ball.

Vladimir said "You see I acquired this object through one of my merchant friends living in Russia about 5 years ago."

"The creator of the object was an old acquaintance of mine. He asked me to find a buyer for his unique creation. You see, my friend thought that Russia being in the throes of rebuilding itself could not provide him with the sale of it. He felt that he would have a much better chance of finding a successful buyer on the outside."

"So I made a deal to find the right buyer and get the best price for him. The deal was for me keeping thirty percent of the profits and the remaining seventy go to his family."

Vladimir went on to explain that a wizard genius by the name of _Dimitry Vorlonsky_ crafted the unique timepiece. He dedicated his whole life to the concept of time and manipulating its energies. _Dimitry_ called his creation Odin's Eye. What can I say; he was a fanatic for Norse mythology.

He then explained that it was a magically constructed Sapphire. Apparently, the crystal creates a stable time capsule from a 50 to a 1000-foot radius. With the little black knob at the base of the claw, the controller dials in the enclosure that they need. Odin's Eye creates a time flux energy web, which uses the owner's magical energy.

The crystal transforms and amplifies that person's magical energy many times over. It warps a stable time capsule within the universal time stream. Vladimir then described the function of the gold knob on the other side of the claw. Its function allows the time capsule to cycle from one up to a maximum of thirty days.

Vladimir explained why you couldn't cycle beyond thirty days. According to Vladimir, Vorlonsky was considered one of the greatest arithmancy masters of the century. He calculated that the maximum amount of time that a flux capsule would remain stable in relation to the normal time stream was thirty days. The calculations include a host of variables such as the moons rotation around the earth, earth's gravity, its distance to the centre of our galaxy and magical core energy to name a few.

Vladimir told him know that most of the written theory was in the instruction manual. To keep the normal time stream from being disrupted, the crystal automatically deactivates after thirty days. It will not reactivate until one full 24-hour period normal time has elapsed.

Vladimir said, "As best as I can understand, the crystal causes every object and living creatures within the time capsule to relive the same day over and over for up to a maximum of 30 days. Since the time capsule is based on the casters magical energy, that person will be the only one who ages true time. If the crystal is set for a maximum time of 30 days, then for every normal day spent in real time, everybody caught in the time capsule will have lived 30 days flux time but only age 1 day in real time except for the caster."

Vladimir seeing that his client was still paying attention continued, "You must understand sir that with this magic, the caster repeats every day in flux time. The difference is that a magical person will be able to remember every day as unique and do anything he wants within that flux time. You must remember that the caster will age as if 30 actual days had occurred, while only one day expires in real time."

Vladimir explained the most critical point however, "You will have to store everything in magical storage spaces, since everything non magical will revert back one day – all your writing and whatever else will erase from the time streams. For example, the air you will breathe will revert back to being oxygen high. The time capsule is a death sentence otherwise.

Vladimir noticed that his young charge raptured by his explanations, continued, "The caster obviously has to be a wizard or a witch, since the crystal only works on magical core energy. When you cast the time capsule you will feel fatigued for the first day until your core energy is recharged."

Vladimir gathered his thoughts and finished by saying, "Obviously the longer the time flux, and the bigger the time capsule, the steeper the magical drain will be on the caster. You must remember that any magical creature will also experience time flux as you do. Only muggles and non-magical things will be repeating the same day over and over within time flux. They will be unaware that they are repeating events."

Harry stood there with his jaw hanging. This would be so much better than a time turner. He remembered two years ago while he was fixing the Dursleys their supper, he had caught glimpses of the American movie that they had been watching called _Ground Hog Day_. This object would essentially recreate the same conditions as in the movie. If only muggles knew?

He couldn't believe his good fortune. This was exactly what he was looking for. Who cares if after two months and a bit he will be 5 years older. He had already done a quick mental calculation and figured that he would have roughly 67 days until September 1. This meant that he would be able to train for 67 months. He would be able to spend 14-hour days on his training. This would amount to over 25,000 hours of training.

God he thought where do I sign. Harry immediately took out his bank slip and wrote 250,000 galleons. He then imprinted his magical signatures to the bank slip. He handed the slip to the man and asked him to do the same.

Vladimir looked at the slip and said "Sir the price was for 200,000 galleons?"

Harry replied, "If you are wondering, the extra 50,000 galleons are for your silence. I want your magical oath that you will never reveal to anyone that I was ever here."

"Your secret is quite safe sir" Vladimir conveyed. He then put his thumbprint on the slip and spoke the wizard's oath, "I solemnly swear on my magic, that I will never reveal to anyone your appearance in my shop."

Harry then asked if there were any protection charms on the object. The merchant assured him that it had a full set of protection charms put on it. Harry satisfied with his purchase, and then bought some owl treats for Hedwig and some mice for Anubis. Harry took out his trunk and made sure that his new procession was properly secured.

Harry exited his trunk, and reduced it. After securing his trunk inside his cloak, he looked at the merchant and made sure to let him know that if the object didn't work he would be coming back for a full refund. Harry thanked Vladimir and left the store.

Before exiting the street, Harry made sure that his hood was pulled up, and that Anubis was well hidden in the folds of his cloak. He pulled Griphook's list of contacts to see where he was going next. After quickly scanning the list, he made his way back towards Knockturn Alley and proceeded to find Borgin's and Burke's.

Harry clearly remembered the place. He had landed there in his second year when he made his first attempt at floo transportation. He had been so nervous that he had mispronounced Diagon Alley and ended up in Knockturn Alley instead. He remembered hearing Malfoy Sr. talking to Borgin regarding some questionable items he wanted to get rid of.

He finally reached the store and mentally re-examined how he should approach the oily merchant. He knew that coming off with an attitude and a hate for the ministry would go a long way in getting to the more questionable items he wanted to get at. One quote he remembered is that money talks and bullshit walks. With that in mind he entered the store. The first thing he noticed was the gloomy and foreboding look of the place. Apparently, the place hadn't changed one bit from his last experience?

Harry stepped up to the counter and noticed a man with a corduroy vest and a plaid shirt. He was balding and had some nasty looking teeth. He kept his hood on, and marched up to the man. He waited at the counter to be noticed. Borgins' however, seemed to completely ignore him. Harry finally had enough and bellowed," Is this how you treat all your costumers. With your level of service, I'm surprised you're still in business."

The man slowly put his magazine down, and took a good look at Harry. He said in a low growl "May I help you?" Harry looked directly into the oily bastards' face, and decided that a direct show of force would be best to deal with this clown. He pulled back his hood and started speaking parseltongue with his new familiar.

Harry said, _**sss **_Anubis, I'll be asking this man some questions and I want you to let me know if he is lying._**sss**_

_**sss **_Yes master._** sss**_

By this time, Borgin had a look of total bewilderment written on his face. Harry noticed this and narrowed his eyes and said with venom, "Ah, I take it you are admiring my little friend here? I love snakes don't you? They understand me you see, and they are very wise creatures."

Harry looked in Borgin's face, and was suddenly very happy with his performance. Looking at the little rat, he had managed to completely unsettle the man.

Harry hissed softly, "Now let's get down to business shall we? I'm not from your accursed country. I am supposed to be attending a school called Hogwarts starting in September. I wish to train up this summer for eeerrrh an upcoming ceremony if you get my drift."

Seeing that Borgin was still listening Harry continued, " I'm a full year away from gaining my legal status in your country. Unlike this backward hell hole, where I'm from underage magic isn't an issue. Therefore, I need to make sure that I can use magic without being detected by your blasted ministry."

Seeing Borgin's sceptical look Harry added, " Don't worry, I'm not a ministry Auror or some other government sycophant."

"How do I know that?" Spat Borgin's.

Harry remembering his previous encounter pulled out his bank slip and wrote 2,000 galleons, and handed it to Borgins'.

Harry said, "Put your magical signature on this slip, and I'll transfer the funds immediately into your account."

Borgin, with a surprised look on his face, looked at the bank slip to make sure this wasn't a joke or some ministry trick. Finding nothing wrong with the slip and realizing that no business had even been done recognized that he couldn't get into trouble. He proceeded to transfer the credits.

Harry continued, "As you can see, how many ministry pukes have ever come in you shop with this kind of coin?"

Harry could see Borgin's eyes take on a greedy look. Borgin suddenly looked up, and with a crooked smile plastered on his face and said, " To answer your questions, none."

Harry smirked back and replied, "On top of my little wand problem, I'm also looking for some questionable reading material if you catch my drift? I'm not interested in the claptrap you have over there on those bookshelves but the good stuff."

Borgin's with a look of interest on his face said, "How much do you mean?"

"A lot and I'll make it worth your while" replied Harry.

Harry had no doubt in his mind that he was going into another hidden room. He would bet Sirius inheritance that the ministry had no idea what was really going on in these back alley shops. Harry was taking no chances and decided to make sure that the pathetic little rat wasn't going to best him.

Harry said, "Before we get started, I must warn you that should you decide to double cross me or attempt to injure me. My little pet here is immune to all dark magic. I have already instructed him to kill you in a most gruesome manner if you double cross me. This is a magical Egyptian cobra and can kill in less than 30 seconds. I've already given him instructions should an unfortunate incident happen during our business dealing. DO I MAKE MYSELF PERFECTLY CLEAR?"

Borgin looking at the snake and getting chills running along his spine replied in a quacking voice "Don't worry sir; anybody who is willing to do business in your league is perfectly safe with me. After all, I want to make sure that we can do more business in the future. Wealthy clients such as you don't exactly fall off a tree."

With that said Borgin took his wand and cast a revealing charm that Harry had never heard off before. Suddenly a blue glow in the shape of a hatch appeared for a few seconds and when it was gone a trap door was made visible. Borgin opened the door and Harry followed him down this old wooden staircase until they reached the basement. Bookshelves lined the back and the left side of the wall. The bookshelves were filled with books from top to bottom.

The entire right wall of the basement was filled with shelves containing dark arts objects ranging from runic stones to daggers of all sorts. There were also quite a few shelves that were filled with potions of all types. Harry assumed that there were all manners of poisons and antidotes. Looking at the middle of the basement was about half a dozen crates and what looked like some kind of Egyptian Sarcophagus.

Borgin said, "Let's remove the ministry tracking charms shall we? You see the ministry of magic track wizards and witches in two ways. There is a tracking charm that is put on all wands made in the U.K."

Seeing that his customer looked interested he continued, "When a wizard or witch gains adulthood, these charm are automatically removed. There is also another charm that is put on every witch and wizard when they are born. This is done on the baby's first check up. This charm is put on them to alert the ministry of illegal apparition. That charm is removed when you take your apparition test at the ministry."

Now the counter charms do not require a lot of power to remove but they are tricky to understand. Here, give me your wand. Harry did as he was told. Borgin then carried out a tetrahedral wand pattern just above his wand and chanted, "_Remelus -Enemata."_ He then drew a rune in the shape of an eye, suddenly there was a purple light on his wand, and after a second, it vanished.

Borgin gave him his wand and asked him to cash a spell. Harry took his wand and cast at the sarcophagus _Wingardium- Leviosa_. The object lifted in the air and Harry levitated the object for a closer look.

Borgin said "Great, no owls as you can see."

Of course, he was in a basement and very much doubted that a ministry owl could find him down here. However, strange as it may seem, he did feel different. It was as if some sort of pressure had been removed from him.

Borgin then said, "Let's remove the last charm shall we." He then carried out a diamond type wand pattern and chanted _"Bantus -Decenniums."_

Now Borgin said," If there is anything else that you would like please let me know." Harry decided to get a closer look at the sarcophagus, as he got closer, Anubis hissed Master, You Have Found the repository of the ancients' knowledge.

Our kind was created to guard and train the worthy. You must get the repository of ancient knowledge master. I will show you how to open it.

Harry couldn't believe the turn of events. First, he finds an ancient Egyptian magical snake, and then a repository of ancient magical knowledge. Harry began to think that fate might be intervening on his behalf for once. He trusted Anubis completely. He also knew that Anubis possessed a great deal more knowledge than he did where ancient magic was concerned.

Harry replied, "I'll do as you ask great one."

Harry was thinking hard and fast. If Anubis is right, then this might very well be the largest discovery of long lost magic in a very long time. Harry then asked Borgin what he knew of the coffin. Borgin explained that he had bought it from one of his contact in Egypt. He had been trying for close to 8 months to open it, but had failed. Borgin explained that with all of his ancient books and knowledge on dark and light magic he had been unable to open it. Failing by using magic, he had moved on to muggle means and tried to blow it apart but it seemed that nothing could penetrate the blasted coffin.

Borgin then said, "Before I forget." He went to one of his shelves and pull out a thin book. He brought it back and said, "This book contains a replica of all the writing found in the tomb where the sarcophagus was found."

Harry took it and quickly skimmed through it. The book contained about thirty pages and seemed very detailed in its explanations. The book had a description of each wall and it's relation to the tomb and the sarcophagus. At the end of the book, there was flat crystal, which contained a silvery like substance in it.

Harry looked at Borgin and pointing at the crystal said, "What's this?"

"Oh! Sorry sir, that crystal there, creates a three dimensional image of the tomb as it was found. You use the spell written underneath the crystal to activate it."

Harry looked at Borgin and said, "I'll take it. This looks like the kind of thing that could keep me busy during my school weekends."

Borgin thinking he found a sucker said, "That sarcophagus and the book will run you and even 8,000 galleons." Harry not wanting to appear too eager took his time before starting to negotiate on the price. They landed on 3 thousand galleons since harry had already given him 2,000 galleons already.

Harry continued with his shopping and after carefully looking at all of the old tomes, decided to pick up the following books:

_Complete guide to Ministry controlled Charms, Wards, Jinxes, Apparition, and Portkey creation._

_Complete works of Hellguard the Magnificent on Ancient Blood Magic, Rituals, and Charms._

_Hit Wizards Fight Dark, Fight Dirty, and Fight to Win._

_The real Auror fighting guide _

_Power Enhancing Rituals_

_Long Lost Runes Alderan_

_Body Magic and Martial Arts the step-by-step training guide._

_Ancient Arithmancy and Spell Creation by Dimity Vorlonsky_

_Occlumency and Legilimency the complete training guides by Ulric the Insane._

_All 6 Tomes of Viking Black Magic by Necron, The Ice Lord (Recently excavated out of Norway.) _

_The Tome of Magical Theory_

_Lost Potions of Rohan. A complete guide to light and dark potions._

_The Ancient Runes of Amazons_

He was very pleased with his book purchases, and decided to further treat himself. After looking at the weapons section, he decided to get an enchanted blade. The blade itself was made from magical metal and was charmed to be unbreakable and permanently sharp. The magical metal itself would prevent any magical healing from taking. Any wound incurred from the blade would have to heal the muggle way. The blade itself was about 8 inches long and was in the same shape as a Japanese Katana but much smaller. It came with its own dragon hide holster and could also fit in Dragon hide boots.

The last thing he bought was a pensive. This one looked to be fairly new and it could prove very useful in the future. Finally, Harry said "What the Bill, boss."

Borgin tallied the bill and replied, "4,500 galleons including the sarcophagus."

Harry shrugged and pulled out his bank slip. He wrote the correct amount and stamped his magical signature to the slip. Borgin did the same and they watched the glow fading indicating that the transaction was complete. .

Once the transfer was complete, Harry removed his trunk and expanded it. He took all of his purchases and carefully stored them in their appropriate compartments. After another 20 minutes, he came out and shrunk his trunk. Harry then made sure that his wand was properly holstered, and his cloak fastened. When he was done, they both made their way back to the main floor.

Back on the main floor, Harry turned around and said "Mr. Borgin, I was never here. If someone comes looking for me, you never saw me, are we clear!"

Borgin replied, " No worries my mysterious man, I wouldn't be in business with loose lips."

Harry sneered but gave him a slight nod and proceeded out of his store. Once in the alley he took out his list to see what was next. He was glad that the remainder of his shopping would be done in Diagon Alley. He looked at his watch and it was now 3:30 pm. He decided to go to Madame Malkin's and pick up his new clothes. Once he was done there, he wanted to get to Ollivander's and see about getting another wand. Looking at his list, and noticed that his final stop for the day was at the magical trunk store. What he had in mind was quite unique, but if it was feasible then his accommodation problems would be solved.

It was now 4:15 pm and Harry had just picked up all of his new clothes from Malkin. Harry immediately set out for Ollivander's. After about ten minutes of walking, Harry found himself standing in front of the shop. He entered and waited for Mr. Ollivander to make his entrance. Harry took his time to look around and thought to himself that the shop hadn't changed at all from his last time in the shop.

He mused that from the look of things it had probably not changed much since the time of Christ. 'Well,' he thought, 'let's see if I can get another match.' Harry proceeded to the front counter. There was nobody there so he waited, after about 10 minutes he decided to make him self-known.

"Is anybody here?" he asked.

Harry could hear a shuffle from the back. Ollivander came out to greet him. He looked at Harry for a few seconds and with a creepy smile said "Ah Mr. Potter, how may I help you?"

Harry tried not to look too shaken at the fact that Ollivander's had recognized him though his disguise and after a few second said "How is it you recognize me through my disguise sir? I thought I was very well concealed."

Ollivander suddenly chuckled and said "Well dear boy, my glasses have, shall we say, some very specialized magic on them."

"You see Mr Potter due to my business and the dangers due to certain elements of our world; I have to be able to see through concealment disguises, polyjuice and other concealment effects."

"Now Mr. Potter how is you wand, lets see ah yes, 11 inch holly with a phoenix core. I remember every wand I have ever sold Mr. Potter."

"My wand is fine sir, but you see I had some trouble in the past. You see, eerrr.. Voldemort wand and mine have a certain connection due to them being brother wand and all. Last time we duelled, I found my self not able to properly cast spells due to the priori encantatum effect. You see sir I need to be able to purchase a new wand so that I can fight him properly."

Ollivander thought about it for about 10 seconds and said " I'm sorry Mr. Potter, but only Aurors are allowed a second wand, and with Ministry approval to boot. I'm afraid that an underage wizard such as you would have no chance of getting another wand from me."

"Sincerely Mr. Potter, I do understand you dilemma, but you see I also happen to be one of the few ministry sanctioned wand distributor for all under age wizards and witches in the U.K. You see, ministry auditors carefully monitor wand cores and magical wood supplies. If I was caught selling another wand to somebody who is not ministry approved I would loose my entire business"

Harry's shoulders sagged. He had always assumed that it wouldn't be that big a deal to get another wand. He then tried to play the sympathy card and said out loud "Well that's just great! I'm supposed to save the fucking wizarding world from Voldemort, but some how that's not enough to warrant a second wand. How the hell am I supposed to duel with the bastard if my wand will not work with him?"

Ollivander looked at Harry and thought to himself, 'If half the stories about him are true, then there is no doubt that he'll be one of the biggest players in the second phase of this war. God knows he was the key in the last one. Maybe I can meet him halfway without compromising my self.'

"Mr. Potter, I may have a solution that you might find acceptable. You see my family have been wand makers for centuries. All of the knowledge on wand making and all of its intricacies have been passed down from one generation to the next."

Seeing that he had Potter's attention, he continued, "Now I may not be able to sell you another wand, but I have several copies of the Ollivander wand making apprentice book. I have just finished updating my thoughts to the family book. I dare say I could sell you a copy of my book on wand making. It is very thorough in both theory and practical application of wand making. I would allow you to purchase my book if you are willing to take an oath on your magic, that you will never divulge the contents of this book to anyone else."

Harry thought about it for a minute and seeing that he had no other alternative replied, "I solemnly swear on my magic, that I will never divulge the contents of Ollivander's wand making knowledge to anyone else."

Ollivander nodded and replied, "If you study my book you should have no problem fabricating you self a powerful new wand Mr. Potter."

Next time he met Voldemort, he wanted to be ready and that meant a new wand. He could only hope that the book would be easy enough to follow and allow him to fabricate his own wand.

The next thing he said was "How much for your book sir?" 100 galleons later, Harry was back in Diagon Alley with a book on wand making safely stored in his trunk.

'Well,' he though bitterly, 'nothing has ever been easy for me, why the fuck should this be any different.' Who knows, maybe if he liked making wands, it could become a new hobby someday. That's if he lived long enough to practice that particular hobby.

Harry looked at his watch and noticed it was now 5:00 pm. He was going to make one more stop at _Chromatics Trunks and Satchel_. He hoped that they had what he was looking for. Harry reached the store and walked in. He quickly located the reception counter towards the back of the store and slowly made his way there. He took his time getting there; he wanted to look at all the various trunk and satchels on display.

He saw trunks in all colours, sizes and numbers of compartment. He approached a short and portly balding man and said "Sir, how do you do?"

The gentleman put his magazine down and with a somewhat fake smile said "Hello, my name is Terry O'Bannon, and how may I help you today?"

Harry looked at him to see if he could some how gage this man and finally said "I'm fine sir, I am looking for a very specific trunk and I was wondering if you could help me?"

The man answered, "Well sir we have a wonderful assortment trunk with a variety of functionalities."

Harry replied, "I remember an Auror friend of mine and he had a trunk with 7 compartments. If I remember correctly the last two compartments had quite a bit of room available. I'm looking for something quite particular in fact. Tell me sir, have you ever received a request for a trunk to double as a fully functional home inside?"

Seeing that the clerk was still listening Harry said, "You see, for some one like me who is constantly on the road, being able to carry a fully functional home in my pocket would be a huge advantage. Not to mention extremely safe."

The salesman looked at Harry as if he had grown three heads. "I'm afraid, sir, that we do not carry any trunk with such functionality. It's not that it can't be done you see, but the magical material and the time necessary for one of our crafters to carry out such a project would be far too extensive to our mass assembly mentality. You are probably talking about a one of a kind item sir. We limit our selves to decorate and furnish one or two rooms at best. "

Seeing the disappointment in the young man's face the clerk added, "I suppose that you could put in a special order and we could get it done for you. However just so you know, with our current back log, we can get it done only by next year."

Damn Harry thought, this was the perfect answer to his home problems, but he couldn't make it fly. Well he thought he did say that it could be done but that they themselves didn't have the time to do it. He remembered his little experience at Ollivander's and decided to change his approach.

"Sir, where do you guys learn to create permanent magically enhanced trunks?"

"Oh, we just have our hires go through a self study program with our company trade book. Why do you ask?"

Harry ignored his question and said, "How good is this trade book of yours?"

The clerk smiled and said, "Well, its very detailed sir. The experience contained in the book has been passed down in my family for over ten generations. It takes the apprentice through all of trunk making theory. It fully explains in details the theory and practical application of the various expansion, replenishment, utilities, security and artistic charms. The theory and practical applications extend to the transfiguration of construction material, duplication of furniture's, and the creation of portals."

Harry thought, 'What the hell, it looks like I'm going to have to do this the hard way also. Fuck, at the rate this is going, I'll be done studying by the time I'm a hundred.

Harry looked at the man for a second and said, "Well sir, how much would it cost me to buy one of your apprenticeship books? Now to put your mind at ease, I have no intention of going into business for my self or mass producing magical trunks."

Seeing that the clerk wasn't protesting Harry continued, "However I do think that I need to fully develop my ideas. It truly is the best solution for me, therefore I beg of you to please give me a price and I'll buy your apprentice ship book."

The man looked at him as if determining whether he was worthy or not and finally said, "Very well sir, if you want one of our books I'll have to hit you for 1,000 galleons. You will also give me a wizard's oath, stating that you won't open your own trunk store."

Harry sighed, but agreed to the terms and paid the man. He made his oath, and paid the fee. Harry made sure to store the book in his trunk and proceeded out of the store.

He looked at his watch, and noticed it was now 6:15 pm. He decided to call it quits, and went back to the Leaky Cauldron and to get himself a room. He would have to finish his remaining purchases tomorrow. He began walking back to the leaky Cauldron when he noticed a sign called _The_ _Magical Menagerie._

It looked like a store dedicated in providing wizarding utilities and kitchen supplies. He walked in and immediately noticed the bright lighting and the homey atmosphere. They seemed to cater into all sorts of cooking and kitchen supplies. They appeared to have a large variety of Ice Boxes. Thinking about how he wanted to avoid his relatives at all cost, and remembering the constant state of near hunger when he stayed there he decided to get one of the little jewels.

Harry figured that if he got his own magical Ice Box, he would never go hungry and would be able to supply himself with all of the nutrition that his body needed for what he planned. He would be doing a lot of magical and physical training and he needed all the nourishment he could get. He noticed a man at the back and sauntered over to get some information.

"Hello, I would like to know more about your charmed Ice Box?"

The man smiled and said, "Hello, my name is Ken McFarland, and to answer you question, we have a vast array of magical ice boxes. Your only limit depends on how much you are willing to part with my dear good man."

Harry thought about this for a while and decided to let this pretentious little fellow know that money was not a problem. He had long ago figured out that a healthy body is worth its weight in gold.

"Well sir, I'm looking for and Ice Box and pantry to help provide me with full size meals in English, Greek and Italian cuisine." answered Harry.

The salesman replied, "Well, we have a wide variety of Icebox and pantry models that provide a fantastic selection of meal plans. Our top of the line Ice Box/Pantry is the _Excalibur Menagerie._It provides up to a 3-year food supply. After three years, you simply purchase a replacement charm. At that point you can decide to try other ethnic foods."

Harry was still looking at the man, when he added, "Each icebox contain up to 50 recipes. The recipes cover breakfast, dinner and supper. They are the pinnacle of Haute Cuisine and provide extremely nutritious meals. The only downside to our top of the line Ice Box is the price. Each box goes for 1,500 Galleons."

Harry thought about this particular offer, and decided that this summer he would be dammed if he let the Dursley control his food portions. "All right I'll take two of them. Now I would like the second icebox/pantry to contain French, Arabic and Japanese meal plans."

The clerk seemed very pleased and said, "Please follow me out back sir, I'll get your order ready. I forgot to tell you that our top of the line models come with voice activated shrink and enlargement charms."

Harry was very pleased with these purchases. He couldn't wait to try out all of the different ethnic meals. He took a bank slip and paid the clerk. When he was done with the transaction, he took out his trunk, and carefully stored his icebox. Harry noticed that space in his trunk was becoming an issue. Geez, he thought, at the rate he was going, he'd be running out of room soon. After storing his merchandise he exited the store and looking at the time made his way to the Leaky Cauldron.

_**Earlier at 12 Grimmauld Place Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix **_

Tonks apparated into the kitchen at headquarters. She found that she was not alone. There was a fairly good contingent of the order present including Dumbledore, Arthur, Molly, Bill, Charlie, Shaklebolt, Remus and Moody.

"Ah, Nymphadora how are you this morning?" Dumbledore asked.

Tonks cringed at hearing her full name. Damn, what the heck was her mother thinking giving her that stupid name? She looked up and said, "Fine sir, except for an incident between Harry and the Dursleys."

"Oh?" Suddenly Dumbledore eyes stopped twinkling and his face looked a little more serious.

"What happened?" He asked.

"Well sir, there was this altercation…and then he picked his uncle up by the collar and just pounded him in the face. He threw him on the couch and then had a little chat with them. I didn't hear everything, but he certainly let them know that he wasn't going to take any crap from them anymore.

Let me tell you Harry is not someone I want pissed at me right now. There is a lot of anger there. You should have seen his eyes they were like Neon floodlights and there was this white aura surrounding his whole body, the air was just crackling with magical energy sir."

Dumbledore sighed and put his hands to his cheeks in the hope of rubbing away his weariness. Finally, he looked up and said, "Well, we're going to have to monitor his house more closely. He has got to learn to control that temper of his."

By this time Remus had had enough and yelled, "For God Sake Albus! Why the hell do you keep doing this to him, year after year? You know his muggle relatives hate him. Hell, he can't stand being around them either. He has just lost the only father figure he has ever had, and he has no one to help him deal with his grief. You keep sending him back there against his wishes for the sake of some ancient blood protection that his mother gave him. Surely the lad's mental well-being is worth more that this protection."

Remus continued his rant and upped the volume. "There are just too many inconsistencies in your plans Dumbledore. You send him to his aunt for this supposed protection, yet that very same place is crippling his spirits and emotional well being."

Dumbledore acted as if he wasn't listening to any of it, which only infuriated Remus even more. He growled and said, "What kind of a fighter are we going to have if he can't muster the will or the care to fight because he is to emotionally burdened? I happen to know about this prophecy you have. Yeah! James told me the whole spiel. I have never told a soul. I happen to know that he will be instrumental in the defeat of Voldemort. Yet you decide to prepare Hermione and Ron. You let them train with Auror and leave Harry to rot with his relatives and do nothing to prepare him to face Voldemort, why?"

Remus took some deep breath to calm himself and said, "I can just imagine what he thinks of you after waiting five years to reveal the prophecy to him. I find that you are keeping way too many secrets. I'll tell you right now, if I find out you have used him as just another of your pawns, I'll personally come after you."

Dumbledore gave him one of his patented grandfatherly smiles and replied, "Remus, I am only looking out for his safety. He has managed so far and I believe that Harry will bounce back very soon from his ordeal. He is the most resilient young man I have ever met. We have already sent a fair warning to the Dursleys and it seems that Harry gave them his own private warnings. He is free to relax this summer and recuperate."

Albus stopped to collect he thoughts and looked directly into Remus eyes and continued, "The reason I have not allowed him to train is that he needs to control his anger. We do not have wards powerful enough to prevent ministry detection if he gets into one of his rages. You have seen what he was like last year. He has to learn to control his anger. Besides, when he is back at Hogwarts, I'll personally make sure that he gets the training that he needs."

Albus was partially listening to Remus. He had reviewed his initial link plan and decided that he was putting too many eggs in one basket. There would be no harm in letting Harry train the way he should come September. This way if his theory on the growing link failed, he would have his back up plan.

Remus shot back, "How can he control his anger Albus, he has no outlet, God you won't even let him go outside for some physical release. He might as well be put in a Gringotts vault or Azkaban for all the good staying there will do him."

Albus now felt he needed to quell this argument lest others see the minor contradictions and bellowed, "I have heard your arguments Remus, but my decision stays."

Remus slammed his hands on the table and said "**FINE**! But don't come crying when Harry comes to the realization that he is nothing but your weapon. When he finds out he'll turn away from you and you are going to have another powerful enemy against you. You are going to lose him. I hope you can face James and Lily's music when your time comes Albus. I don't think they are going to be too impressed on how you treated their son."

He stood up from the table and walked off.

Moody then turned his magical eye to Albus and said, "Remus is right, I don't know what games you are playing at Albus but you are in the process of making some real blunders. If you don't take some steps to help Harry now, you and the rest of us are going to really regret it".

"The only emotion the kid has right now is hate. I'm sure you're aware by now that he is going through his magical growth. From what I can already discern, the kid is going to become one hell of a powerful wizard. The last thing you want is another future dark lord on your hands."

Bill Weasley had been listening to the arguments. What Remus said, made him re-evaluate Dumbledore's actions. Since the Triwizard tournament, Bill's respect for Harry had increased dramatically. The kid had been thought hell and back. He had also overhead the twin's story about Harry's second year. They had rescued him from the muggles. Apparently his room had bars on his window.

'What kinds of people do that to a child?' he thought. There is no doubt in his mind that the muggles have been mistreating Harry. For Bill it came down to a pretty simple concept. Harry had saved his baby sister from certain death, plain and simple. If it came down to a showdown between Harry and Dumbledore, he knew whom he would pick. He needed to talk to his brother Charlie and find out where his loyalties were. As far as he was concerned, the Order needed him a lot more than he needed them.

Ron and Hermione looked at each other, as if wondering what prophecy. Hermione began having a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wished that she could just contact Harry. She wanted to know how he was doing. Dumbledore forbid them from sending any correspondence for the rest of the summer. The headmaster felt that Harry needed his space to grieve over Sirius properly.

Ron felt bad for his friend being stuck with his hated muggle relatives and all. On the other hand he was also glad that Harry was out of the picture for a while. He was getting to know Hermione a lot better, and he was finally getting something over Harry. Harry would be really surprised when he found out that he could beat the pants off him in DADA. This summer was shaping up to be his best ever. Sucks to be Harry, but hey that's life for you.


	6. Chapter 5 Shopping Part 2

**Chapter 5 "Shopping Part 2"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry looked at his watch. It was nearly 8:00 pm. 'Well,' he thought, 'It's getting too late to carry on with shopping. I'm knackered anyway. I'll be having another long day tomorrow, better get a room and relax tonight. His stomach took this particular time to remind him that he needed to eat. So he made his way to the Leaky Cauldron and towards the bar.

'The place must have thinned out after the supper rush,' he thought. There was still a group of faithful patrons enjoying some libations. He quickly scanned to see if he could spot someone, but he did not recognize anyone. He approached Tom, who seemed to be putting away some butter beer.

Harry said, "Excuse me sir! I was told that you are the patron for this establishment and I was wondering if you have any rooms available for tonight."

Tom looked him up and said, "could I please see your forearms!" Harry thought that he must have been checking for death eaters. So Harry showed him his forearms to let him know that he was clean.

"Sorry about that, but one must be careful these days!"

Tom got his ledger and uttered, "Name please?"

"James Evans".

"Very well here is your key, you'll be in room 15".

Harry then inquired about getting his supper brought up to his room if possible. He ordered Bangers, Mash potatoes and some Butter beers.

"Room service will be extra" Tom said.

"That's fine", Harry got his credit card out and paid for his room, supper and his breakfast tomorrow. He took his key and went up to his room. He then put a powerful locking charm on his room and a perimeter charm. He took his trunk and enlarged it. He needed to get his vault's charm books and look up disillusionment charms for tomorrow.

He knew that his disguise make up would not last the night. He went to the mirror and carefully memorized his appearance and jotted his looks to memory. He had retrieved the book and had found several disillusionment charms. He picked a 12-hour duration charm and began practicing the incantation and wand movement. When he was satisfied, he put his book back in his trunk and took off the locking charm and perimeter charm. It was now 9:00 pm and finally someone knocked on his door and hollered "Room Service!"

Harry pulled his wand out and cracked the door open, thoughts of CONSTANT VIGILANCE surfacing in his conscience. Harry thought that Mad Eye must have had a much bigger influence on his Psyche than he thought. Harry said, "Please put the tray down and slide it across the floor!"

Harry picked up his tray, and closed the door. He then reactivated his locking and perimeter detection charms. He took out is wand and muttered a few incantations over his food. He would have to thank Mad Eye and Bill for teaching him the Jinx, Hex and Poison revealing charms. His food had not been tempered with so he got down to business and tackled it with relish. When he was done he got a white rat out of his trunk and said to Anubis

_**sss **_Anubis, I have set supper for you, I will put you down, so that you can go hunt your meal _**sss**_

_**sss **_Master, I look forward to my meal _**sss**_

_**sss**_ When you are done you can crawl back to my bed to stay warm, If you don't mind, my mind magic is still not very good, would you help me guard mind while I am sleeping_** sss**_

_**sss**_ Master you do not have to ask, I will always help you protect your mind, it will be an honour_** sss**_

_**sss**_ Thank you my friend. It was hard to tell, but Harry had the impression that his snake was happy. _**sss**_

He finished his nightly routine and prepared himself for bed. He was pretty tired but decided that he would try to clear his mind to help his Occlumency. He realized more than ever how important it was for him to become a master Occlumens; he would do what ever it took to learn Occlumency and Legilimency.

This he realized would be his first training task. He crossed his legs and started to do his deep breathing, very soon he could not hear anything except for the rhythmic sound of his heart. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. He still found it very hard to completely clear his mind. Every time he was close stray thought would surface and distract him. After 30 minutes of this, he crawled under his blankets and closed his eyes. He mentally reviewed what was let on his list. By 10:30 pm Harry was fast asleep.

Harry woke up the next day at 6:30 am. He found that Anubis was sleeping quietly at the foot of his bed. He got up and found that he has slept a very good night. It surprised him that he had not had his regular nightmare from the events at the DOM. He scar had not even twitched either. 'Well,' he thought, 'no sense pondering a gift.' Every night he didn't have snake face making unwelcome visits was a blessing indeed. If that was Anubis' doing, then he was more then worth his weight in gold.

He got out of bed and did a few exercises to increase the blood flow. He then went into the shower and had himself a nice soak. He got out and felt completely refreshed. Today he had to wrap up his shopping spree. He found out last night that **Flourish and Blots** open at 8:00 am. He got dressed and decided to apply the disillusion charm he had learned yesterday. He took his wand and pictured what he looked like yesterday he completed a full circle above his head while muttering "**Dessino Mascus". **He went to look at himself and found that he looked like he did yesterday. He reduced and pocketed his trunk and then told Anubis to wrap himself like he did yesterday and cast a different disillusion charm on him.

He wanted him to blend with his own body so he slashed his wand and uttered "**Dessino-Nocens". **He looked in the mirror again and found that Anubis blended completely within his shirt, if he made no sound or movement then no one should be able to tell that he was there. He was happy with his work and took the perimeter and locking charms off his room. He then proceeded downstairs to get some breakfast.

An hour later he made his way to _Flourish and Blot's_. He entered the store and noticed that it was not too busy. He knew he was going to get a lot of books and decided to get an expendable cart. He decided to start in the transfiguration section. He picked up his 6th and 7th year NEWT's for his entire core courses. He had Trans, Charms, Potion, and DADA. When he got thinking he was going to also learn Arithmancy and Runes so he decided to pick those NEWT books as well as the beginner books not to be lost.

It would be a while before he got to those subjects but he was not about to leave any stone unturned in his quest for knowledge. Looking further into the Trans section he picked up some unique books on advanced transfiguration, self-transfiguration, home needs and furniture transfiguration, and the one that really interested him was Transfiguration duelling. He then walked to the charms section and picked up a tome titled

From ancient to Modern Wards

He also picked up a book on blood wards,

Animating Objects, and

The grand daddy of them all The Grand Book of Charms.

His next section was Potions. He picked up the regular class books and also picked up a book on healing potions. He browsed through it and noticed a section devoted to blood preservation and replenishment potions. This got him thinking about the blood wards that needed to be re-strengthened. He remembered Dumbledore saying that he needed to be close to a blood relation of his mothers.

His magic interacted with Petunias blood to help recharge the wards. He wondered if this could be accomplished with only her blood and not have her stick around. A kernel of an idea began to form in his head. There might be a way to get those damn Dursleys out of his hair after all. He knew that _Odin's Eye_ would take care of them, but wouldn't it be even better to simply get rid of them for the majority of the summer? No sense inviting unintended discoveries! Continuing his quest for more books he picked up another book called

The Top 1000 Most Useful Potions

Then Harry walked over to the Defence section and picked out the following books

How to Counter the Dark Arts

Duelling Defensively and Offensively

Protection Spells

After getting those books Harry walked over to the final section he wished to purchase from and started grabbing the following books.

Duelling Dirty

Duelling Tactics

How to Duel Multiple Opponents

Obscure Hit Wizard Spells

How to Resist Spells

He figured he had more than enough books to get started. With that thought in mind he made his way up to the counter. He met the clerk and checked out his books. Surprisingly there was nobody waiting in line.

While the clerk checked out his current selection, Harry decided to keep perusing the shelves. He found one at the back of the wall. It was a dusty shelf and looked kind of hidden. You really had to look to find this section. He decided to pick up the following tittles

Defence and Offence of the Mind

Hexes and Curses

The self-updating book of law

Australian Aborigines Magic

Magic of the ancient Americas

From that section Harry found himself in the Trades section. He found some very interesting books and decided to pick:

Building your Magical Home,

Completed spell guide to making your very own broom,

Modern Magical Mining and Smelting,

Japanese sword making,

Creating Magical Artefacts

He put them all in his cart brought them all to the clerk. Harry decided that if he went any further he wouldn't be able to fit all of his purchases in his trunk. He patiently waited at the counter for the clerk to finish ringing in his books. Finally the women finished and said

"Why so many books, Mr?" Harry had collected nearly 60 books.

Harry eyed the woman and decided to give the stuck up little witch a little lesson. "Ma'am who I am is none of your business, what is your business is to tell me how much I owe you, get it?"

The woman's eyes grew steel hard and she told him it would cost him 445 galleons. Harry picked all of his books and made sure that they were properly stowed in his trunk.

He reduced and pocketed his trunk. He pulled his hood over and made sure that his face was properly covered. One can never be too careful even with disillusionment charms. As Mad Eye would say CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Thank god he did too because just as he was nearing the door, in came Hermione and Ron. No doubt Herm was checking to see if they had an updated version of Hogwarts a History! They just passed him and paid him no attention, for which he was very thankful. Soon after he was back in Diagon alley and decided to head towards Gringotts. If his plan were to work, he would need a chuck of muggle money to sweeten the Dursleys.

He looked at his battered watch and noticed that it was around 9:30 am. As he was walking towards Gringotts he noticed a store Pandora's Time Keep. 'What the heck,' he thought. 'One more purchase will not kill me.' He walked in and noticed the store clerk. He made a beeline right away, "Excuse me, Sir?"

The man noticed him and said, "How may I help you young man?"

"Well I need a new watch and I was wondering what model you carry, money is not an issue".

At the mention of no money issues, the man perked up right away and decided to bring in his most popular collection. Harry looked at a few of them and for the most part they weren't too flashy and didn't seem to be overly magical.

Harry told him "These are nice, but do you have anything more magical than these?"

The clerk looked at him and said "well sir I've just received a new shipment of Auror and Hit Wizard watches. You must either have an Auror licence or enough money to get around the Auror discount. These watches are water and fireproof. "

The man continued with his verbal diatribes.

"They also have an unbreakable charm and have a built in dark detector/locator. The watch when prompted can also project a three dimensional image of your surroundings over a 300 feet radius with you at its centre. You will always be the centre of the map. The blue dots indicate friendlies and the red dots show dark wizards. The watch uses the person's magical energy to feed the indicator/locator crystals. This type of watch would be very useful if caught in a tight situation, yes!"

Harry thought about this and pictured his past fights. He came to the conclusion that these features could be very handy in a fight. Harry said "How much? I don't have an Auror license but I do want one?"

The man said "100 galleons!"

"O.K. In what colours do they come in?"

"They come in platinum, gold and silver. The backings are emerald green, sapphire blue and ruby red."

He ended up picking the Platinum model with an emerald green background. He made sure it was set for the correct time and promised himself that he would read the watch manual on his way to Privet Drive. He got out of the store and decided to make his way back to the bank. He was almost there when he looked to his right and noticed another store _Knights and Squires._

He looked into the window and noticed that it had all sorts of battle gear. He was intrigued and decided to have a quick look. He entered the store and started looking at different battle robes and weapons. He knew that he wanted to forge his own weapons. He had bought a book specifically just for that, but it wouldn't hurt to buy some decent body protection. A gentleman sauntered over and introduced himself as Eric Greengrass.

"What can I do for you Sir?"

"I am looking for general information on battle clothing and such?"

"Well sir we have a large array of battle clothing. We currently stock 4 types of dragon wear along with chimera hide and Acromantula shirts. Unfortunately we do not carry any Basilisk wear!"

Harry asked, "What is so special about Basilisk wear?"

"Sir, it is the most resistant magical material that we know. It is even tougher than dragon Hyde and will practically protect against most spells except AK. It will significantly reduce the effects of Cruciatus should you have the misfortune to run into that one!"

Harry thought for a moment and remembered his 2nd year adventure. How could he forget slaying a 60 ft Basilisk?

"Sir, maybe we can come to an arrangement! I know where to find some Basilisk hide. If I can get it for you, could you make me some battle robes and a vest! I'll pay you accordingly and leave you with enough hide to make two more robes. You see I happen to know of a 60 ft Basilisk that was slain not to long ago. As you can imagine that was no easy feat to say the least!"

The man was practically drooling on himself and asked "When could I get the material?"

Harry said "Sometime by the middle of the summer if everything goes O.K."

The man said he would wait to be contacted by him. In the meantime Harry ended up buying a pair of Horntail Dragon boots. It had special pockets for a blade and a wand. They were also charmed to be quiet, waterproof and had an environmental climate control charm on them. They made the wearers feet stay at a constant temperature no matter the weather conditions.

He also bought two wand holsters, one for his wrist and one for his calves. They were charmed to be invisible and would protect his wand from any summoning charms. The holsters were also incredibly fast at drawing. He practiced a bit and after a while his wand landed in his hands very naturally. He ended up shelling 150 galleons for his wears.

Harry got out of the store wearing his new boots and made his way back to Gringotts. He decided to get £4,000 pounds to give the Dursleys so they could go on a nice vacation and out of his hair. Speaking of his plans Harry had one more store in Diagon alley to go to. He needed to find a well-stocked apothecary and get three new potion kits. He also needed a fully stocked potions cabinet for professional potion maker. He felt that Potions was his weak point and planned on doing a fair amount of studying in that particular area. He walked down to _Eros Apothecary_.

When He got there he quickly scanned the store and found his cauldrons. He ended up picking seven cauldrons with built in shrinking charms. He picked two coppers of different sizes, one silver cauldron, three cauldrons of surgical steel that were very sanitary, one Gold cauldron that was very large and a Platinum cauldron. He decided to also buy a full set of platinum measuring spoons, a magically charmed ladle, a voice activated cauldron heater, a full set of glass beakers, a full jug of neutralizing potion, and a professional master potions cabinet.

The total came to 700 galleons, but it would be well worth it, he thought. Harry wouldn't have to come back to the apothecary for quite a while and he would have everything he needed to make practically any potions he wanted. It was now 11:30 am according to Harry's watch. He made his way out of Diagon alley and, a few minutes later, was out of the Leaky Cauldron and back in muggle London.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief and smiled to himself. He couldn't believe that he had pulled it off. He decided to be extra cautious however and leave his concealment disguise on. He picked a Pizza Hut for some quick grab. After gorging on Pizza, Harry decided to make his way to this large muggle bookstore called Chapters.

Harry remembered seeing it while coming off from Kings Cross Station. He pulled over a Taxi and decided to get a ride. He had enough of walking over the last two days. Anyway he figured he needed to gain some time.

He finally got to Chapters and decided to ask one of the store clerks for what he was looking into. He spotted one of the clerks and sauntered over. He noticed that her nametag read Stacy.

He called her over and said "Excuse me Stacy, I'm in a bit of a hurry and I was wondering if you could help me? I know what I want to buy!"

"No problem Sir just let me know what you want." Harry ended up buying

_**Fundamentals of Modern Physics**_

_**General Chemistry Complete Guide 6th Edition**_

_**Molecular Chemistry **_

_**Nuclear Chemistry**_

_**Calculus and Analytic Geometry (Set of 8 books)**_

_**Computer Fundamentals Hand Book**_

_**Basic Programming (Set of 4 books)**_

_**Modern Biology and Zoology (Set of 12 books)**_

_**Oriental Meditation**_

_**In Search of the Human Mind**_

_**Modern Weapons**_

_**The Art of War by Sun Tzu**_

_**The Anarchist Cook Book**_

_**From Hannibal to Marshall Zukov (2000 years of Military Strategies)**_

Harry made out with his purchases with his new muggle credit card. Once outside he went out back of the store and carefully looked around to make sure no one was there. He reduced his muggle books and put them in his trunk. His final stop was going to be at an electronic store called Comet. He pulled another Taxi and 20 minutes later he walked into the Comet Electronic chain store. Once there he decided to buy a Dell Pentium Laptop, a new colour television, a VHS, a CD and a complete sound system with a full rack of contemporary music. He decided to stick to classical and hard rock.

After talking to the Salesman he decided to get himself a cell phone and bought himself a three-year plan. This would allow him to connect his cell phone to his computer and surf this Internet system that the muggles had. He had seen Dudley use it many times, and you could get almost unlimited information from this system. It would come in handy having this computer.

He would be able to organize his magical courses much more efficiently. The computer came with something called Windows 95 and Microsoft Office Suite 95. The storeowner showed him how to boot up the system as he called it and how to start, navigate and close particular programs. After he was comfortable he told the storeowner that he would go out back and pick up his merchandise.

He went out back and made sure that he had all his new possessions in one pile. He carefully looked around to make sure no one was there and reduced all of the items to matchbox size. He enlarged his trunk and stowed his new purchase inside. He reduced and pocketed the trunk and made his way back to the front store. He then checked his watch and noticed that it was 2:30 pm. He decided to check NC Furniture across from Comets. If he was going to build his own trunk then he needed ideas on furniture and such. He also noticed a muggle gymnasium and thought that he would seek some advice there also.

He made his way to _NC Furniture_ _House_ and started memorizing the look and feel of the different pieces of furniture. He looked at beds, sofas, bookshelves, tables, whole suites and ensembles. He was not going to buy anything here but he just wanted some ideas. He cornered a clerk and asked them about the different materials used for the baths and the woods used for the furniture. After and hour of this he got the clerk to give him a whole set of catalogues along with a complete set of materials samples. He had samples of all of their exotic woods, ceramics and marbles. He got out of the store and carried his samples bag next door to New Body's. He quickly cornered a very intimidating and muscled man.

"Sir, I would like some advice on body building?"

"Sure thing, what do you want to know?"

"Well sir, I'm looking to get myself fit, but I have never had any exercise equipment before and was wondering if you could help me pick out the right machines for body building?"

"Absolutely! Here let's go see the following machines. Just so you know working the machines is only one part of bodybuilding. You need to have proper nutrition to maximize your efforts!"

After about another hour of counselling, Harry decided to buy himself a full set of free weights, and two universal Nautiluses machines. One had over 25 exercises for upper body development and the other had about 15 exercises for lower body workout. He decided to also buy a mechanical treadmill machine for cardio. He took the man's advice and bought some books on nutrition along with muggle nutrient supplements. He mainly bought protein and amino acids for his workouts.

He gave him his address and proceeded out of the store. He would be getting he new equipment delivered tomorrow. He looked at his watch and it was now 4:30 pm. It was time to head back to Durzkaban. He again found a quiet corner with no muggles and enlarged his trunk. He stored his material samples and furniture magazines. He looked at his watch again and figured with the traffic it would take a minimum of 1 hr to get to Surrey if he was lucky.

He was thinking about how he would get back to 4-privet drive and decided to take his watch booklet and his magical home building book. He had to learn how to activate his map. He hoped that he could evade the Order successfully. He got his books out and stored his trunk back in his robe pocket. He remembered that he would have to take his disillusionment charm off when he got to Surrey. He would keep Anubis' charm on, no sense pissing off the Dursleys any more than he had to, even thought it was down right fun.

Finally he made his way back to Main Street and decided to take a cab all the way to Surrey. He flagged his cab and off he went. Harry told the cab driver to drop him off at Magnolia Road in Little Whinging Surrey. He certainly had no intention of going right up to Privet Drive in a Cab. This would definitely alert the Order, and he sure as hell wanted nothing to do with any of them at this moment.

So he sat back, and read his watch manual. As he began to read he realized that the merchant must have gotten confused because there was no such thing as a three dimensional watch, what he did discover was that the watch would create a map similar to the marauders map of Hogwarts but with a 500 ft radius. The wearer had to hold the watch with his arm extended away from his body. He then had to press on the emerald crystal on the right bottom corner of the watch, and complete a 360-degree spin. The imbedded diamond at the 12 o'clock position would scan the area and generate a two-dimensional map that only the wearer could see. The map would show the location of buildings, friendly, and enemies relative to his position.

As Harry read on he became even more exited as the watch also had the capability of identifying the names of people, and would also tell you if they were under a polyjuice disguise or not. The watch could also let you know if there were any animagi present in the area. 'Wow,' Harry thought, 'this would come in really handy.' He began wondering whom these watches were destined for. Probably hit wizards he thought.

He looked at his watch and figured he had another 45 minutes drive, and decided to look up room expanding charms in his magical building book. He would need the extra room to store all of his belongings until he managed to build his dream trunk. Before he knew it, they were pulling up to Magnolia road. He told him to stop by the park. He paid the 150 pounds and thanked the man. Now came the really tricky part, he pulled out his invisibility cloak and put it on, he then put a silencing charm on himself and proceeded to Magnolia Crescent.

He walked some more and when he thought he was within 400 ft of his house; he activated his watch and completed a full circle. He then watched as his watch displayed a map. It showed his position relative to the centre of the map. He scanned the map and it showed him what he was looking for. This thing was incredible, and the details were very thorough.

So Bill Weasley was on watch today? From the information on the watch he was about 100 ft from the house facing the North entrance. He was by the Oak tree across the road. This would be easier than he thought; his bedroom was located on the East side of the house. He made his way carefully to his house, making sure not to make any noise.

When he got to the east side of the house, he looked up at his bedroom and cast a perimeter silencing charm. He then looked up at his window and uttered **"Alohamora"**. He then cast **"Wingardium -Leviosa"** on himself and proceeded to float himself to his bedroom window. He had to be careful and keep his concentration or he might end up seeing Madame Pomfrey earlier than he thought. He got up to his window, opened it and floated himself through. He had made it! He had fooled the Order of Confusion and the Old Fucker himself. Now he was ready to begin his next step.

_**Little did Harry realize that these two days spent would change his life forever? **_


	7. Chapter 6 Training part 1

**Chapter 6 "Training Part 1"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Now that he could do magic, the first thing he needed was more room. He looked at his book again to make sure he understood the wand movement and incantation. He cast the spell **"Conclave-Dispando"** This charm was a controlled expansion charm. You set the amount of expansion you needed. The charm could only go up to what the maximum expansion parameter that the room would allow.

The material of the wood, the size of the wall, and the magical energy of the caster and a host of other parameter determined the maximum amount of expansion the room could take on. Harry figured that all he needed was an extra 20 feet of room in the back of his bed. Once the room was expanded, he cast a disillusion and a concealment charm to make it look as if the old wall had not changed. Anybody looking in, even a wizard or witch would only see his old bedroom. Shit he thought, he had forgotten about Mad Eye, he would be able to see through the disguise, he had to find a way to beat his eye. He took out his trunk and expanded it. He went down and brought out his dark arts charms and wards books.

After about 30 minutes of reading, he found what he was looking for. There was a type of ward mixed in with a charm. This spell looked quite odd. This ward was cast on an area, which countered any see through function. This should trick even magical eyes into seeing a false image. He read up on the ward and how to cast it. He had to picture his bedroom as it had been and cast his wand in a conic shape while muttering **"Occulto –Are-Zotheca"**. When the spell was cast a silvery light covering the inside of his room glowed for about 3 seconds and then it was gone. 'Man, being able to do magic was awesome!' he thought.

He looked at his watch and it was now 6:30 pm. At 7:00 he would go down and sell his idea to the Dursleys, so for the next 30 minutes, Harry dragged his trunk behind his wall and began unloading. He would keep the books, Odin's Eye and the sarcophagus in his trunk for now. Everything else was coming out. If he had to do a quick exit he would have his most prized possessions ready to go. He got his potions book and opened up to the blood preservation potion.

He then transfigured one of Dudley's old toys into a workbench. He got all of the necessary ingredients from his master potions cabinet. He got his platinum cauldron out along with the burner. He then transfigured another of Dudley's broken toy into a beautiful crystal vase. It was about 2 feet high and 6" in diameter. He also transfigured a large marble into a granite base holder for the vase. When that was done he decided it was time to confront the Dursleys.

Knowing his uncle he probably locked all the locks on his door. No matter, a quick **"Alohamora"** and he opened his door. He could hear them muttering downstairs, and picked up words like "should have him arrested for battery," and "No, we can't. His kind will make it even worse for us." Harry thought that his little temper tantrum must have affected them more than he thought.

He made his way downstairs and put on his best sneering face on. He walked into the kitchen where his aunt was the first to notice him, and she shrieked. Vernon turned around and Harry could clearly see two black eyes and several bandages around his mouth area. He bellowed **"You have a lot of nerve showing yourself here after what happened!"**

By then his face was pure magenta and spittle was coming out of his mouth. Dudley looked at Harry with pure venom in his eyes, probably trying to figure a way to extract revenge on him. Harry however decided to say nothing for a few seconds and then he reached into his pocket and took out two rolls of 1,000 pounds each and threw them at his uncle.

"Remember what I said the other day about trying to find another way? Well here is £2,000 pounds. There is enough there for all of you to go on a nice vacation to Majorca until the third week of August. This money on top of the money you have been saving for your summer vacation should allow you to treat yourselves to a very nice vacation indeed."

He then turned to his aunt, _**"Now aunty dearrrreeeest"**_ he said with such loathing and hate that she nearly fell off her chair. "For this to work and the blood protection to remain intact I will need you to go to the blood bank and get two of litres of your stored blood. I know you keep these in case you need some future surgery or something?"

His aunt had always been pretty paranoid." Get yourself a cooler and bring your blood here. Don't try to mess around with this. I'll know if it's not your blood! At any rate I'm doing this to keep Voldemort from killing you so you might want to co-operate. God knows why I'm doing it. I should just let him kill you all!" He decided to keep the scare pressure on. No sense slacking off now.

He decided to elaborate" With you guys gone, there will be no chance of what happened two nights ago. I feel that if we are forced together for any major length of time, then I have no doubt that I will be forced to kill one of you, that is for certain!"

At the mention of the word kill, they all looked at Harry with fear in their eyes. "Look, as I said before, you were forced to take me in, and I sure as hell never asked to come here. You hate my kind and me and that's fine by me. Just so you know my hate for you is just as great. If you want to blame someone for all of these manipulations, then I suggest you start hating Dumbledore, my headmaster. It's because of his manipulations that you have been made miserable. I am as much a pawn in this as you are."

He decided to throw in some comfort.

"I will be working very hard this summer to learn all that I can so that I can break away from his manipulations, and allow all of us to also have the life that we want."

Vernon listened to his nephew, and for one once decided that nothing good was going to come from another confrontation with him. Something had happened to him to turn him cold and calculating. Long gone are the days when he could intimidate him and get away with it, no this Harry was not to be crossed, his face certainly bore testament to his new found strength and temper.

As much as he loathed the little bastard, he was not going to refuse a paid vacation by the likes of him. One thing he was dying to know was how he had gotten the 2,000 pounds? One thing for sure, Vernon Dursley was someone who could hold a grudge. He would find a way to repay his nephew for his beating that's for sure. For now he would simply go on a nice vacation.

_Little did Vernon know that his failure to let some things drop would cost him everything!_

"All right, I'm willing to get away from you at all cost, when should we be leaving?"

Harry answered "I want you away from me no later than tomorrow evening. By 7:00 pm tomorrow you should be on a plane to your destination! Do I make myself clear? And don't worry about your precious home. I will be taking good care of it; we wouldn't want to upset fucking Dumbledore now would we?" He spat.

Petunia looked at her sister's son, and could not believe what had happened these last 48 hours. She had never expected her nephew to hit her in any fashion. That night she had truly been scared for her life and the lives of her family. Something had happened to him at that damn school of his? She could see it in his eyes. For the first time in her life, she was starting to regret how she had gone along with Vernon's ideas on his treatment of her nephew these past 15 years.

She now realized that she may have played a much bigger part then she ever thought in turning this young man into this cold individual before her. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she had absolutely no influence on him anymore. She now truly believed his threats. If her sister were watching, she would never forgive her for what she had done to Harry.

Petunia spoke up "Why do you need two litres of my blood?"

Harry answered "I believe that I can renew the blood protection without having you present physically! I have found a potion and a spell that will allow me to tie in the concoction directly to the blood wards. "

"Very well, I'll do as you ask. I will be back by 1:00 pm tomorrow with my blood."

Harry had been able to do some research at Hogwarts and found the spell that would tie blood directly to a ward. He was sure that this was the spell that Dumbledore had used. He simply needed to tie his blood concoction directly to the ward. The potion would keep both his blood and her blood alive for the next three months. By tying the vase to the blood ward, the wards should strengthen directly from the blood mixture.

"Good, now I suggest that you both go to Dididkins computer and book your flights and lodging! By the time you get back from vacation, I should be gone from this shit hole permanently. If my plans work out, you will never see me again, good riddance". Harry replied coldly.

Vernon knew he was taking a chance but decided to find out where he got the money. "Where this you get all of this money?"

Harry lied "I went to a wizard bank and took out a loan; I'll pay it off when I get my first wizard job!"

They all looked stunned, that he would do something like this for them. Well Vernon thought that was probably not the truth, but if it was, either way he was not going to look down on this money, no matter where it came from. Harry was looking at the internal struggle that was going on in his uncle's head, but he knew in the end that he would win, if nothing else Vernon Dursley was a greedy little pig!

They watched him go to the fridge and pick up the rest of the pot roast and a whole jug of orange juice and went upstairs to his room.

Once in his room, he decided to see if Hedwig was back. He opened his bedroom window and proceeded to wolf down his grub. Within 30 minutes Hedwig flew to her perch and hooted.

"Hey girl," Harry answered, "well I got all my business done and it went well for me girl. Now I need you to meet someone, his name is Anubis and he is a new addition to the family, you will get along with him now, won't you girl? For me!"

Hoot, Hoot answered Hedwig.

"All right I suppose you should meet him before you agree." Harry went and got Anubis off his bed and presented Anubis to Hedwig. Both Anubis and Hedwig looked at each other for about a minute, and then Hedwig turned back to Harry and Hooted once more, giving him her blessing. Wow, he sure was glad that they got along so quick. Not taking any chances he decided to ask Anubis

_**sss **_Hello Anubis, I wanted you to meet my OWL Hedwig, I want you both to be friends to each other, she will not try to harm you, can you promise the same. _**sss**_

_**sss **_That will not be a problem, master. I have already scanned her and found her to have no malice towards me; I promise not to hurt her. _**sss**_

Harry decided to give Anubis more comfortable bedding than his own. He picked another of Dudley's broken toys and transfigured it into a 4" X 6"X 6" sand box. He then took some more marbles and transfigured them into fine volcanic black sand. He filled the box sand to about 4" high. He than took another marble and transfigured it into hollow obsidian pyramid. It was 3" X 3" X 3". Anubis could go into it to get some privacy. The Entrance was 1" X 1" and sported the head of a Cobra at its entrance. Harry then put a permanent heat charm, to a temperature of 82 F.

Harry then said _**sss **_Here you go Anubis, you very own home _**sss**_

_**Sss **_Thank you master, it looks very inviting _**sss**_

Anubis had been right, he had been very lucky to meet up with such a great master; he liked his new home very much

Harry put Anubis on the black sand, and he swore he heard Anubis say _**sss **_home at last? _**sss**_

Once Anubis was comfortably set, he decided to get his potion ready, according to his tome it would only take 1 hr for prep time and another hour for cool down and bottling. He went to his bench and began his work. He went to his cabinet and retrieved the ingredients (powdered asphodel, lace wig, 24 eyes of newt, Heberian dragon bile, Gillyweed… etc.). By the time11: 45 pm came around, he had finished his potion and properly bottled it. He then looked into his book on charming magical artefacts. He needed to ensure a constant source of charged magic in the vase to help convert the blood magic to the wards. For this he learned that one could charge any pure gem quality crystal to store energy. This energy would then be released slowly over a period of time. He looked up the charming spell to imbue the crystal with raw magic. He went to his trunk and took out a handful of amethyst and put them in the crystal vase, he then slashed his wand in a wave pattern and uttered

"**Pletum-Crystallus-Hecateius-Navitas"**

A blinding white stream of energy left his wand and struck the crystals. They glowed and then settled to a rhythmic pulsing. The book explained that the crystals would pulse at the same rate as the wizard's heartbeat. With this done all that was needed was his aunt's blood and 10 drops of his magical blood. If he were right then the blood protection would recharge during the summer months. Looking at the time he decided to quit where he was and spend 30 minutes clearing his mind. First he put a locking charm on his door, **"Compingo-Ianua"**,he then put a silencing charm on his room **"Reticeo- Conclave". **The words CONSTANT VIGILANCE running through his mind. Last thing he wanted was an attack from the Dursley in the middle of the night.

He sat on his bed and began clearing his mind. He reviewed the last 48 hours and happy with those memories he let them go, to settle in his subconscious. Very soon he was hearing nothing but the sound of his breathing. He laid his head on his pillow and his world went dark, exhaustion finally claiming his mind and body. Anubis had watched his master go to sleep

He hissed _**sss **_Sleep well master; I will guard the doors to your mind. _**sss**_

_**Monday June 25, 1997**_

At around 7:30 am, Harry awoke from a rather pleasant dream of winning the Quidditch world cup. He looked at his window and could already see blue sky, and the sun was out and bright. He took a long stretch and yawned. Wow, he thought, he felt completely refreshed and rested. Harry never quite realized how much he had missed true sleep. Anubis would get another good feed today.

Harry hissed _**sss **_Good morning Anubis! _**sss**_

_**sss **_Good morning master! _**sss**_

_**sss **_If you are hungry, I will leave out some food for you later in the morning, I know you like to catch your prey. _**sss**_

_**sss **_That would be great master. _**sss**_

"Hello Hedwig, how are you girl?"

Hoot was her reply. Harry went to his pet supply and got out several tasty treats and put them in Hedwig's cage, she nipped his finger with affection and went to town on her treats. Harry decided to clean up her cage **"Evanesco"** he uttered with his wand. Now with that done he decided to get his shower first and then some breakfast. He took off his charms and went to get himself a shower. When he was done with his morning habits he went back to his room and decided to have some breakfast. He realized he did not have a table and chairs. He looked at an old set of Dudley's wood toys.

He bitterly remembered how he was forbidden to play with those toys when he was 4. He took out the wooden mallet and transfigured it into a table. He then took several of the wooden balls and made them into sitting chairs. With that done he went to his English Ice box, and got himself a country skillet consisting of hash brown, scrambled eggs, diced peppers, mushroom, cheddar cheese and a large glass of orange juice. This was followed with 4 wheat toasts and raspberry jam. 'Man,' he thought, 'this is great. No more near starvation.'

He needed to calculate the distance parameter to engage _Odin's Eye_, so he decided to measure the boundaries of the house and for safekeeping he would set the boundary to be within 5 ft outside the house. He needed to find the centre of the house. He made sure none of the Dursleys were around and he picked up his wand and cast the measuring spell "**Admetior-Modus"**.

An image would appear with a number telling him the distance from his location to his preset boundaries. It was sort of like a muggle laser range finder. He found that if he cast the spell by the 2nd floor bathroom he was pretty much near centre of the house.

With this done he decided to go and sort all of his remaining books in his trunk. He went in his trunk and piled all of his books in the centre room and began cataloguing his entire book in terms of subject. Charms, Transfiguration, DADA, Potions, Trades. He did the same thing but with Dark Arts books only. By the time he has finished with his books, it was nearly 12:30 pm. He decided to take a break and get himself some lunch. He went to his ethnic icebox and pulled himself some lamb shawarma and some pumpkin juice. By the time he was done he noticed it was time to meet his dear blood relations. He picked up the crystalline vase and made his way to the kitchen.

As Harry neared the kitchen, he could hear his uncle and aunt. He made his way to the kitchen and noticed a cooler sitting on the kitchen table. He looked at his aunt and asked her if she had the blood?

"Yes, I even gave you a fresh bag. I gave some blood this morning!"

"Good, he said, let's get this over with and have you on a nice plane and out of my hair"

He went to the ice box and picked up the blood bags. He then emptied the blood bags inside the crystal vase and took out his dagger and cut his hand, he let 10 drops of blood mix with his aunts. He then took a litre of blood sustaining potion and poured it in the vase. He then waited for the crimson light to fade, and followed through with the incantation **"Cognatio Matertera Tutela" **a deep pulsing burgundy light emitted from the glass jar.

After about 10 seconds, the light began pulsing in a rhythmic fashion at a regular interval. Not long after that, there was a very bright light that surrounded the house for about10 seconds and then it was gone. As far as Harry could tell the spell had worked. The blood protection wards would be strengthened while his aunt was away. Harry was sure that the old bastard kept an eye on the strength of the wards, and this would hopefully fool him into leaving him alone.

"Well the spell worked, I am positive that the blood protection is being renewed as we speak".

"It looks like everything is set. That manipulative bastard of a headmaster of mine will not know what is happening. I just want to let you know that this arrangement is the best. I hate all you, after everything you put me through. I'll never forgive you. If my plans work out properly, this is the last time I will ever have to see you. Should you ever cross me or injure me in any way in the future, I will make sure that you suffer the most painful deaths imaginable. Never forget the words that I have uttered today"

As he said this they could see the sneer on his face and the glow of his eyes. Vernon and Petunia looked at each other and understood that this was no idle threat. Vernon began to understand the extent of the boys hate for him. The only question that mattered is who was in charge, and clearly Vernon understood that he has lost his title. To provoke the boy would be suicide. He resigned himself to make the best of his choices. If he was lucky, he would be rid of him and his kind by next summer.

To ensure that the Order would be completely fooled he needed to draw them out with him to give the Dursleys a chance to get away from the house. He told that that he was going for a Jog and that his would be guardians would have no choice but to follow him. He had not doubt that the order was watching him, and he needed them to think that the Dursleys would still be around, so he made sure that the family car stayed and the Dursleys would get a cab to the airport.

By the time 5:00 pm rolled around, he had his shorts and trainers and went for a jog around the park. He knew that the order would be unhappy with his outing, but in his mind this served two purposes. It would piss them off and would divert attention from the Dursleys and they made their exit. By the time he got back to Privet drive they had taken a taxi to the airport and he was now alone in the house.

God for the first time in his life he felt utterly liberated. Just as he was about to enter the house a delivery truck showed up in the driveway. He now remembered his physical training equipment that he ordered the other day. He waited for the deliveryman to make his way to him. Not wanting the Order to get to suspicious, he went inside the home and got them to drop all of his equipment in the living room. He signed the delivery form and bade them goodbye. He proceeded to cast a levitating charm on all of his equipment and he set them up in his room. When the equipment was properly set, he decided to write to the order and his so called friends to make sure they stayed away from #4 Privet drive.

Harry knew that he needed to keep up appearances and not attract any attention yet, so he would stay nice to the traitors for now. When the time came he would drop the hammer. Revenge is a dish best served cold! He currently held the advantage, he knew of their betrayal, but they did not know that he knew. When the time came he would use them.

_Dear Remus_

_Everything here is quiet. The muggles are treating me o.k. I am keeping busy and trying to get over Sirius death. I will need a lot of time to myself to sort all of this. Don't worry I'll be fine. I miss him very much. _

_I'm sorry for what happened if only I would have known Occlumency. I have to live with this guilt for the rest of my life. It's going to take me a lot of time to put all of this into perspective. Take care of yourself Remus. I would like to see you this summer but I'm sure the great bastard will forbid it. _

_I just want to know why Dumbledore is interested in me and Who Fucking made him God? I would like nothing better than to tell him to go fuck himself with his orders, but I know that I can't. __**Look, tell the Order that the muggles are being nice, and I will not be sending you guys a parchment every three day. I'll be fine now**__. The threats at Kings Cross had their effect. Don't worry I am telling you the truth. See you in September. _

_Sincerely_

_Harry Potter_

_P.S Could you take Hermione's letter and mail via muggle post. Since I'm in prison, I can't do it!_

He also decided to write some letters to his so called friends

_Dear Hermione_

_Hope you are had a good time in Australia? _He knew damn well that she was not there, but he should keep up appearances._ By the time this letter finds you, I'll be close to the middle of August. I'll be seeing you in September. _

_I need time to sort out my feelings so don't bother sending an Owl asking me what I am feeling. I honestly don't know at the present. Plus I'm sure that our esteemed Headmaster would not allow any correspondence getting to me. Must keep Harry in the dark, you know. At this point in time I don't care about getting any information; it's not as if it's going to be the truth anyway. As for the papers they are probably to busy slandering me anyway. There are a lot of changes coming Hermione, things will definitely change this coming year. I hope I am up to it. Well on this last note good luck on the OWL's and Take Care_

_Harry_

_Dear Ron_

_How are you? Well don't bother writing me, as I am sure Dumbledore will forbid it anyway. The muggles are o.k. and not bothering me. I guess the thought of Mad Eye coming over here is enough to keep them in line. I need a lot of time to myself now, to sort out where I go from here. Sirius was the closest thing I had to a parent and now he is gone because of me. Believe me I plan on making some changes come September. Have a nice summer with the Dragons and good luck on the OWL's. See you then_

_Harry_

Now Harry thought, he had to keep the illusion that the Headmaster was still controlling him, the very thought galled him to no end but such was his reality. His over all objective was to make sure that the goon squad stayed as far from the house as possible. This would no doubt limit the potential for any unwelcome discoveries where he was concerned.

_Dear Head Master_

_The muggles are treating me o.k. for now as we have come to a certain understanding. That being said, it has become obvious to them that there are FREAKS near their house. Part of our mutual respect agreement is for your soldiers to stay off the property. _

_They have made it clear to me that they will file a formal complaint to the minister of magic, and I told them that I would help them with this if you do not remove your puppets from their property. If you feel you must post your guards, then do so from a fair distance, they don't need to be so close that they hear me fart under my covers at night. _

_It will take me some time to get over Sirius, and the prophecy. In the end I now truly realize what I have lost, he was the only person that I could really TRUST! I'll deal with my grief in my own way and in my own time. I will see you in September. _

_Sincerely_

_Harry Potter_

Well the letter was a tad on the cool side, but it was plain that he would not bother with him for the rest of the summer. He essentially told him he needed his space. That being said, he hoped that the old bastard got the message.

After his letters he realized that to stay focused and disciplined, he needed to make himself a schedule:

_**June 25 Odin"s Month**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs…etc._

_7:00-7:15 showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 11:30 Occlumency training_

_11:30- 12:00 lunch_

_12:00- 4:00 pm Theory of Magic _

_4:00- 6:00 High Parseltongue_

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-10:00 Muggle Science Physics, Chemistry, computer science, meditation_

_Bed_

Now he needed to engage _Odin's Eye _and begin his training. He made sure to send Hedwig with his letter to the Order. He went to his trunk and retrieved the Eye, he then positioned the eye outside of the upstairs bathroom and uttered the time spell "**Districtus-Vetustas-Anteeo**-**Fluxi" **suddenly a golden light engulfed the whole house and just as quickly the light was gone and Harry went back to his room. Harry suddenly felt very weak, he knew that his magic had been drained and he would need to rest to replenish himself.

_**4 week later Odin Time**_

Harry was reading the last of his Occlumency books. He had read all of his light and dark arts books on the subject. The problem he was dealing with was the fact that most of the theory pertaining on the subject dated back to the early 1800"s. God wizard kind was so very slow in inventing and adapting. All of the books he had studied dealt with clearing his mind and building a multitude of barriers.

The problem was that every wizard dealing with mind magic was aware of the current Occlumency literature and their techniques. In using the current theories, any Legilimens expert would know these theories and know how to get around these Occlumency blocks. All the books on the subject proposed a method of segmenting ones mind like an onion or a pie. The outer layers would contain garbage information and the inner layers would contain his more intimate thoughts. The deepest layer would contain his most private memories such as the contents of the prophecy or his love interest.

Harry realized that he needed a new way of thinking and organizing his mind. He needed something that was completely different to current Occlumency techniques. If he could find his own method, any Legilimens would find it very difficult to break his shields. They would not have the time to recognize the defence structures and would not have any effective counter attack.

The Odin's Eye proved to be a nuisance as well. Everything had to be stored inside his trunk. If he forgot to leave it out, it would be erased. Harry was very frustrated at first, but thankfully Vladimir had given him the hint about the storage of notes. He told that anything that has a magical residue can and will transfer through the time flux. The magical beings and artefacts went back with the flux, while everything non-magical was lost to the destruction of time.

In the meantime he practiced reaching his core, just like Anubis had taught him. Well in reality, he had given him some ideas on the how. Harry had read his meditation books, but in the beginning he had a very hard time calming his mind because his books called for picturing a calm and tranquil place that his mind could escape to.

Harry, having been raised in a cupboard and not gone anywhere, did not have a very good repository of calming images. Anubis had sensed this and had transferred images of his own experiences. He gave him images of the Egyptian desert at night under a full moon. Harry had nearly cried at the beauty of the images. The images were so real that he could even feel the night breeze on his skin while sitting on the sand dune. He could see the moon sparkling on the Nile and the Desert valley bathed in the moonlight. These images had allowed Harry to tune out all of his other thoughts and after a week, he was able to reach his inner magical core.

He had been utterly shocked by the exquisiteness and calming effect that was his inner being. As he reached his center, he felt himself standing on a cliff looking at an ocean of blue white material. It was sparkling as if he was seeing the Milky Way galaxy. This energy Ocean seemed infinite.

He soon realized that he was looking at his raw magical energy in its purest form. He could see a vast array of channels that connected the Ocean's shoreline to where ever the channels went. Some of the channels were nothing more than creeks, and some gave the appearance of small narrow rivers. From reading his magical theory books, the channels were the energy conduits to every part of his body. Apparently very powerful wizards not only had vast quantities of raw magic, but also had very large and developed conduit for channelling their magical energy.

Harry had learned from his favourite magical theory books that there were three parts to magical energy. This particular book was very good because it had been written by a muggle born wizard who decided to become a muggle neuro-surgeon. The book had been written in 1989, but no one had been willing to give it mass printing. He had not doubt that it was because most pureblood had no faith in any muggle science. Again Harry thought that their prejudice would truly be their undoing. Harry, as far as he knew, had bought the only copy of this book. Harry was now convinced that it was several grades above anything that the regular mainstream had come up with.

The author explained that a wizard's blood was the building block for creating magical raw energy. This is why this author believed that muggle born witches and wizards, were a genetically mutated branch of Homo Sapiens. They were an evolved branch of humanity. This does not mean they are superior to regular muggles, but their gift at manipulating magical energy as it is called has made them a very special breed of humanity. He went on to say that in time the whole world would eventually become magical. Through magical census, and statistics he had proven that the incidence of muggle born witches and wizards were on the rise. 'Well,' Harry thought, 'this certainly fit with Darwin's theory of evolution. Selective mutations often favoured a species.'

The current argument of pureblood superiority in wizard culture is utter nonsense. The strength of the genetic mutation ultimately determined the powers of the muggle born witch or wizard. They could be born with a very large capacity for manufacturing raw magical energy and a very large PONS for storing the energy. If the mutation were weak then their powers would also reflect this.

This also explains why some muggle born witches or wizards were far more powerful than some of the so-called purebloods. The magical ocean he had seen in his inner self was a representation of the available raw magic that his body had in reserve. The channels were the conduits from which the raw energy would flow from the brain to the rest of the body.

The PONS was a region of the brain, which had two functions for wizards and witches. The PONS would act as a magical storage device and it also served as a relay station between the higher cerebral cortex functions and the cerebellum. The cerebral cortex would define the spell and give it shape and function. The stronger the emotion, the more magical energy the PONS would store.

Powerful wizards had very developed PONS in their brains. That was somewhat analogous to a muggle electronic capacitor waiting to be charged or discharged. The more powerful the wizard or witch, the bigger the capacitor would be. The next important factor to being a powerful wizard or witch was having wide magical channels properly developed in their bodies. The larger the quantity and the wider the channel the more power could be delivered to the wand arm.

The author believes that through extensive meditation and internal restructuring, a magical being could increase the size and amount of magical channels. In fact with enough magical channels one could create a new form of magic called body magic. At this stage the persons magic could be sent out to the surface of a person and enable incredible feats of muscle manipulation. One could become very strong and fast. Some Oriental wizarding cultures have made it a religion to develop this type of magic.

The books had explained how to widen the channels and create new ones. It explained that it was a long and painful process. Once the channels were widened the amount of power accessible would grow exponentially. Roughly 30 minutes twice per day should be devoted to this exercise.

One had to use their raw core energy and slowly force it through their existing channels. You had to picture a powerful river cutting through the land and emulate it internally. The more energy you force fed to the channel the more it would grow until the individual felt no more pain in creating the channel. At that point the channel would be in equilibrium and at its maximum width and power flow. Creating new channels was the same process. You had to picture where you wanted a new channel and force the core energy to flow to your intended destination. You could create channels to your brain, any where in the body or to the surface of the skin.

Harry had every intention of force-feeding the energy until he could master body magic. He now wanted to master body magic more than ever. If he could mix this type of magic with muggle martial arts, then he would gain an incredible advantage in combat. The only problem was that he had nowhere to train in martial arts. That didn't matter right now. He needed to grow his magical channels to begin with. There would be enough time to find a place later on.

For his next month he had to find a way to gain on his Occlumency training. Tonight he would have to deactivate _Odin's Eye_ and wait until tomorrow. He decided that he would hook up his computer to the Internet. He had been fascinated at the muggle creation called the computer. He had studied about RAM, ROM, hard drive and file structures; he had studied operating systems, file encryption and about computer virus and antiviral systems and viral scans. He learned about the Internet and search engines and firewall for protection.

He took one more look at his computer book and laid it by his Occlumency books and went to deactivate the Eye **"Arcanus-Anteeo- Fluxi" **a silver light lit the inside of the house for about a second and was gone. When that was completed he got started on hooking up his computer to the Internet. By the time he was finished and had surfed the Internet several times. He noticed that it was nearly 6:00 pm. He stopped and realized that he was quite hungry.

He decided to get himself a good meal, and for tonight he chose a plate of braised lamb, lemon herb potatoes and falafels with a pitcher of pumpkin juice. He had to admit, that getting those magical Icebox was a stroke of genius. He went back to get his computer book and noticed that it was lying beside his Occlumency book. He went to pick up his computer book and noticed his Occlumency book sitting next to it. He then turned back to his computer book and back to his Occlumency book. He suddenly came up with the wildest thought!

He now figured that there was no reason it could not work! That's It. This would be leaps and bounds better than any of his previous Occlumency training. He would emulate the organization of his brain like that of his computer. His brain would be like a hard drive. His Occlumency shields would be the equivalent of firewalls. His Legilimens capabilities would be equivalent to viruses, worms and bots! His personal files would have the equivalent of encryption programs. He would train his mind to counter any mental attacks.

God this would be so unique that any Legilimens would have no idea on how to penetrate his mind or where to look for information. He remembered Anubis tell him that even memories could be imprinted with a magical signatures. This would be the equivalent of encrypting his thoughts with his magical signature, any tempering of his thoughts would prove very difficult to the Legilimens as he would have to overcome his magical signature, and this encryption method would make it much easier for Harry to scan his own mind to see if false memories had been planted. 'Man, this was brilliant,' he thought. It would take a while to sort out his memories but it would be worth it.


	8. Chapter 7 Training part 2

**Chapter 7 "Training Part 2"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

_**June 26, 1997**_

Harry awoke from another nice undisturbed sleep. Another benefit of _Odin's Eye_ was the fact that being caught in a time capsule, made it much more difficult for Voldemort to reach his mind. Also all of his meditation from the previous month has had a very nice effect on him. He felt much more relaxed, and knew he could manage his anger much better. He would always be a firecracker where his temper was concerned. He was wired that way, but now he felt he could start controlling it much better. After his exercise routine he had a long steamy shower and then a huge breakfast of steak and eggs with coffee.

Now long after breakfast, Hedwig came back with some letter, one was from Remus and the other one was from Dumbledore.

_Dear Harry_

_I hope this letter finds you well. I am glad to hear that the muggles are not being a pain in the ass this year. It looks like our welcoming party had some effects after all. Harry, believe or not I know what you are going through, you lost a godfather and I lost a brother. _

_I know that you need proper time to grieve, as do I. I have informed everyone to leave you alone. I do not know if they will heed my warnings? When you are ready, let us know. Molly was not too happy about this, but I showed her the letter and she knows your wishes. One person I can't seem to read right now is the Head Master. He has always kept his cards close but now they seem to be hidden from view. I believe he mentioned you coming to headquarters by the third week of August. Until then if you need me you know where to find me. _

_Sincerely_

_Remus Lupin_

Well Harry thought, if there is one person who can understand, it's Remus. Harry was very apprehensive about reaching Remus just yet. The werewolf might harbour some resentment towards him for being partly responsible for Sirius death.

_Harry, _

_It has just come to my attention that against my wishes Gringotts will be contacting you about the will of Sirius Black. I am sorry but at this time you will be unable to go to Diagon Alley for a reading. It is simply not worth the risk._

_I also ask that you refrain from leaving your relatives house. For the wards to protect you to their fullest extent you need to be inside. I know you like to spend time in the park down the street but I must insist that you discontinue this practice and remain indoors._

_Unfortunately you will also be unable to leave Privet Drive until third week of August. I will arrange for someone from the Order to obtain your school supplies before term starts and arrange for a guard to pick you up and deliver you to Headquarters._

_Let me know if your scar is bothering you, as it may be critical information that the Order is able to act on and save innocent people. Please remember that it was not your fault with regards to Sirius death. He had always wanted to go like a hero, which is exactly how he went, defending his love one. Don't worry about my possessions in my office, they have already been fixed or replaced. _

_Best Regards,_

_**HOGWARTS SCHOOL  
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY  
**__  
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,  
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

Harry read his letter and began feeling the blood rush to his ears. He could not believe the gall of that bastard. He was forbidding him to leave his house! Or go to the park! Who does he bloody think he is?

'He is not my guardian. Hell I don't even trust him anymore, and as far as I'm concerned he is simply a benevolent Voldemort in his own right.' He began his breathing techniques to bring his temper under control. It would not do to alert the Order of accidental magic. That would lead to way too many questions. Now that he thought about it, he had not received any mail from the traitors either.

'Well it's for the best,' he thought. When he thought about it, Dumbledore would probably shit himself when he would find out the little changes that were made regarding Sirius' will. He suddenly felt an evil smirk come on his face.

Harry decided that for every month spent under _Odin's Eye_ he would make a new work studying and training would dictate his priorities for the month.

He first needed a place for Hedwig to be happy and free. She could not possibly stay cooped up with him 30 days at a time. He decided to write to Hagrid, and ask him to take care of Hedwig. He knew deep down he wouldn't mind. He would use a little guilt play as well.

_Dear Hagrid_

_I am currently residing with the muggles and as much as it pains me. Dumbledore has just told me that I can no longer receive mail from anyone. The muggles don't really like Hedwig to be flying around the Neighbourhood as it might get the neighbours talking. _

_She is not happy just staying in my room. I have decided that the place for her would be to stay with you. If you can't keep her, please send her to Ginny Weasley with an explanation. Hope your have a nice summer and say hi to Grawp for me. _

_Harry Potter_

Now I have to come up with a new schedule.

_**June 26 Odin's Month**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs…etc._

_7:00-7:15 showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 11:30 Occlumency and Legilimency training/ Magical Channels_

_11:30- 12:00 lunch_

_12:00- 1:30 pm Theory of Magic applied to Reading Magical Auras/ Anubis training_

_1:30- 3:00 High Parseltongue/ Training with Anubis_

_3:00-6:00 Apparition Theory and Application/ Portkey Theory_

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-10:00 Muggle Science Physics, Chemistry, computer science, meditation_

_10:00-11:00 Occlumency_

_Bed_

By the time 8:00 pm rolled around Harry engaged _Odin's Eye_ and went to sleep early to recuperate.

**4 weeks later Odin Time**

Harry could not believe the success he was having with his Occlumency and Legilimency training. Just as he had thought, borrowing the ideas from muggle computer science had allowed him to properly restructure his mind. He had Anubis show him how to imprint his thoughts with his magic. This had been very useful. He had imprinted all of his thoughts with his magical signature and had properly broken his thoughts into access folders.

He had treated his brain as the equivalent of a hard drive. He then encapsulated the concept of ROM and RAM. His ROM would contain his very deepest memories (his parents, girls, prophecy…etc.). His RAM would be the equivalent of his conscious memories. His RAM would retrieve knowledge from his protected hard drive folders and make them readily accessible.

When finished the conscious knowledge would flow back from the RAM to his folders. It had been very slow at first. He had to create the major folders and subfolders. He then had to encrypt each thought and folders with his magical signature. He had created folders and subfolders for all of his memories and knowledge. He had a folder for Happy Memories and subfolders to further define his happy memories.

These were broken down into friendship, family memories, girlfriends, Major events like winning the House cups….etc. He had done the same thing with his unhappy memories. He had subfolders for the Dursleys, Voldemort, and Snape…etc. He decided to create a separate folder for Light and Dark Magic. He decided to create subfolders for the different branches of magic. In each category there were subfolder for charms, transfiguration, conjuring, DADA, Dark Arts, Medic Magic, Apparition, Portkey, Mind Magic, Arithmancy, Runes, Blood Rituals, Potions, Duelling, Physical Combat, Trades magic such as wand making, Trunk building, sword making…etc. and on and on it went.

He had done the same thing for the muggle sciences and created folders and subfolders for all of the different branches. He created a separate folder for Magical Auras as well. He was now able to feel and see magical auras. Anubis had proven to be a very good teacher. At first he had not understood the concept of magical auras until something in his physics book had allowed him to grasp what he was looking at and how to manipulate it.

Essentially the natural frequencies of an object are merely the harmonic frequencies at which standing wave patterns are established within the object. These standing wave patterns represent the lowest energy vibrational modes of the object. While there are countless ways by which an object can vibrate each associated with a specific frequency. Objects favour only a few specific_ modes_ or patterns of vibrating. The favoured patterns of vibration are those that result in the highest amplitude vibrations with the least input of energy.

So understanding and manipulating magical auras was simply using magical energy to emulate or transform the natural standing harmonic frequency of an object, a magical creation or a living entity. All objects and energy in the universe have an aura that can be manipulated. Harry now began to fully understand the links between magic and matter.

All things in the universe possess this magical energy. It was simply locked away for most of them. Magical energy was just that: another force of nature that people with this gift could produce and manipulate.

Magical energy was another fundamental force of physics. It was another part of what the muggles physicist referred to as the four fundamental forces of physics. You had the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic, the gravitational and Harry believed that magical energy had to be part of this equation. A muggle by the name of Einstein essentially proved through his equation E=mC² that matter can be transformed into energy and vice versa. Magical energy is a very refined energy that can transform matter into energy and back to matter at will.

With his aura folder created, he then added the entire magical aura recordings that he knew. This essentially involved casting a spell and remembering its aura. This had many benefits. If he could not remember a particular spell he could simply recall the effect he was looking for and this would force him to recall that particular aura.

In studying aura he had discovered that it was not necessary to yell or even spell out the incantation. He learned that it was much more important picturing what you wanted to do and add as much detail as possible. Then convey the necessary amount of emotion behind the spell. Emotions were a clear mental description of what you wanted the spell to achieve and were the major factors in successfully carrying out a spell.

When he had finished with this folder he began building his walls. This stage had occurred on his third week. He had finally settled on a proper firewall. He pictured his mind surrounded by a 3-foot thick Tungsten Carbide Sphere, which happened to be one of the strongest metals around. He then pictured his sphere with 4-sided razor blades extending three to 4 feet out of the sphere. He pictured each blade dripping with scorpion and snake venom. He conjured a mental picture of the net effect of being cut with the blade. He pictured a person suddenly drying up and becoming mummified. He pictured inhumane screams and horrific pain.

Now he needed a way to get out of his sphere in order to practice his Legilimens attacks. He modified his sphere to include two of the purest cut diamonds imbedded in his sphere. These would be the only access to his mind. These diamonds represented the connection to his eyes. Now he decided to physically charge the diamonds with all of the magical energy that he could muster. This had been utterly draining work.

He had read in his magical theory books, that it was extremely difficult to overcome a person's magical energy. The more energy that was available, the more difficult it became to overcome the defences. If enough energy was supplied it became impossible to breach. The very first channels that Harry wanted to develop to their maximum potential were to his mind. By the fourth week he had achieved his goal. It had been supremely painful. His mind could now call on as much magical energy as it needed to overcome any attempt to breach his mental entry points.

Harry had also made some startling discoveries when he had catalogued his memories. He had analyzed his memories from his third year. He noticed that he had subconsciously analyzed the magical auras of the Dementors during their attacks on him.

This was surprising because he did not remember doing this consciously. His skill of reading magical auras must have been triggered out of fear during the lake incident when his godfather had nearly had his soul sucked out. He had spent a great deal of time analyzing these auras and consciously memorizing their intricate signatures.

He had come to the conclusion that the dementors fed on the magical energy of all inanimate and living things. They did this to power the spell that they used to feed on negative emotions. This is why people felt very cold and weak in the presence of Dementors. They were being ripped of their magical energy and the Legilimens effect of the dementors spell allows them to feed on a person's positive emotion.

This has the effect of leaving a person bereft of happy thoughts. This results in partial or total incapacitation for that person. This theory was a major discovery on his part. Without knowing the particular spell that allowed the dementors to feed on magical energy, he has still been able to duplicate it by bringing forth its magical aura.

After much practice, he had been able to release the aura of the spell. Harry had clearly noticed a dropping of the temperature in his room and had noticed himself filling with magical energy. This was elating to say the least.

The next thing that he had done was to analyze the modified Legilimency spell that the dementors used to bring forth a person's positive emotions. Harry believed that he could do the same thing. Because his Occlumency shields would be at their maximum strength, he would not be bombarded with their emotions.

This aura would be the equivalent of a computer virus. It would seek and target a specific set of files. This virus would attack happy thoughts. This should sufficiently weaken a person's mental defence to allow him further access to their subconscious. If he became skilled enough he could establish a Trojan by imprinting some of his magical energy into a person's brain. This would help him set up a back door for future mental attack. This was fucking brilliant, he thought.

He had further practiced recalling the magical aura of the modified spell and noticed his magical energy dropping. 'I guess this explained why the dementors fed on surrounding magical energy. They needed it to keep powering the modified Legilimency spell.' He had no one to practice this particular aspect of the dementor's spell on.

However he was very confident that he had done it right. Harry then set out to further strengthen his firewalls. He pictured a form of Dementors patrolling the outside of his mind sphere. His Dementors were imprinted with his magical signature. They would patrol the wall to detect any foreign magical signature. Upon detection they would initiate a full Legilimency attack.

Of course that being said, Voldemort was immune to dementors, so having remembered the Old Coot's words about positive love energy, he made sure that his sphere entry points had a direct channel to his happy memories folder. If Voldemort tried to enter his mind, he would not only fight his magical energy but also be subjected to his entire collection of memory base of love. This would surely deter him from further probing into his mind or have the urge to plant false memories.

He now felt that he had completely mastered Occlumency and had developed excellently at Legilimency skills. The only thing he lacked in making him an outstanding Legilimens was practice.

One of his most important discoveries had been his scar. As an experiment in reading magical auras, he had looked in a mirror to see if he could analyze his own magical aura. He had been very pleased to see that his aura was a very bright bluish white colour mixed with green tinge. According to Anubis this meant that he was at the very top range for a magical power. When he looked at his scar he noticed that its aura was red mixed with black. With more probing he found out that behind his scar at the frontal lobe of his brain was a small sphere of magic energy that was not his own!

It appeared that it had been growing over the last two years. Harry had panicked and asked Anubis to confirm his findings. Anubis had confirmed for him that this magical energy was not his own. He also said that the sphere was very old and contained much information. He then asked Anubis if it was possible to stop the sphere from growing and destroy it. Anubis said that it was possible, but that in the process of destroying this link, he should also strive to access the information contained in the sphere.

This discovery had been a total shock to Harry. It meant that he now understood the extent of his connection to Voldemort and now believed that if he did not break this sphere it would continue to grow until their very soul ware connected.

If this happened it would not matter who killed whom, they would both perish. With these thoughts in mind, Harry decided to completely eradicate this influence on his mind. If it were possible he would try to control the link and not Voldemort. Every time Voldemort had controlled the link he felt extreme pain. He now understood why that was. In creating a link to his mind, Voldemort had to push his own magical energy against his, and the clashing of magical energy was extremely painful.

_**The first thing he did was to focus on creating the widest magical channel possible to the sphere around his scar**_. By looking at the current channel it was extremely weak. No wonder Voldemort had been able to overpower him. Although it had been incredibly painful, he had managed to create the biggest possible channel to the alien sphere. He knew this because he no longer felt pain when trying to enlarge the channel. The channel now looked like a very wide river.

With the help of Anubis to help him put a block against the mental pain, he began to push against the sphere with his own core energy. He pictured a huge spike against the sphere and began to push more and more, and the pain had been unimaginable. After many days he had finally pushed through the sphere. What he discovered in the sphere had been nothing short of amazing.

The sphere had contained the majority of Voldemort memories. Harry believed that on that fateful night that he had been cursed 15 years ago Voldemort was forced to transfer his memories to him. Voldemort in the process of having his soul stripped from his body did not have the energy to both maintain his soul in the living plane and maintain all of his memories. In the process, the curse must have created the link and a storage medium so that Voldemort would be able to access all of his past memories should he come back to life.

Voldemort must have known this. Using his blood during the resurrection ceremony had two effects. It would remove part of his mother's protection. This would make it easier to set up a mind link to him. Voldemort must have recognized the importance of his connection to Harry during 5th year after Ron's dad was injured. It would also explain why he has been growing stronger and at an accelerated rate.

Tom must have been retrieving his past memories from Harry's mind during his linkups. What Harry now realized was that Voldemort had only been able to retrieve a copy of those memories, the original were still very much stored in his mind. Harry realized that that day he had to deactivate _Odin's Eye_. He proceeded to do just that. On his next time flux, he would concentrate on retrieving all of Voldemort useful knowledge and destroy his magical sphere.

With this little bit of knowledge, Harry began to sift through all of Voldemort memories and discovered that up to know he had only retrieved about 65 percent of his original memories. Well, Harry thought, this would be all that he would retrieve. He would have to re-learn the other 35 percent if he wanted them. He carefully sorted through all of the memories. He had been amazed at the man's knowledge. He would have to finish this on his next time flux.

_**June 27, 28 and 29 Odin's Month**_

**12 weeks later Odin Time**

Toward the end of his fourth month, Harry had successfully sifted through Voldemort knowledge and in the process had acquired beyond NEWT levels knowledge in subjects he had never studied. He had filled both his Dark Arts and Light Magic folders and subfolders. He had filled it with such topics as Arithmancy, Conjuring, Runes, blood magic. He had retrieved thought magic, rituals, dark arts, duelling, potions, charms, transfiguration, spell creation and Legilimency.

He had destroyed all of the memories relating to peoples torture and other sick memories. The only ones he kept were those of his parents on the night of their deaths. He had cried that night when he had seen the true sacrifice his parents had made on his behalf and the unconditional love that they had displayed. This had further pushed him in his learnings.

Even though he had gained all of this knowledge, he still felt that he had to review all of his school material from first year to his NEWT level books. The knowledge that Voldemort had possessed was over half a century old, and there had been a lot of spell creation in that time. Another benefit of sifting through his thoughts was that he had gained a very good profile of the man's psyche. He would use this info in their next encounter.

Harry had come to the conclusion that he did not want to destroy his link to Voldemort. He wanted to control the connection instead. After the memories had been sorted, he had poured vast quantities of his own magical energy into Voldemort's magical sphere. Towards the end of his 8th week, he had finally completely destroyed the last vestiges of Voldemort's magical energy. He was very relieved to know that his soul would remain intact and he would no longer suffer the splitting headaches that had plagued him in his 5th year.

Harry then spent considerable energy adding barriers to the link and reversing the magical conduit that linked Voldemort mind to his. Through deep meditation, he had seen in his minds eye the shape and structure of the link or conduit as he called it. With the help of Anubis, he had poured enormous amounts of energy into transforming the conduit to facilitate the flow of energy his way. He did this bit by bit and in a very subtle manner. He did not want to alert Voldemort that he no longer controlled the connection. He had been able to change the conduit up to the surface of Voldemort mind.

He had not penetrated his mind as not to alert him of the changes. He had then changed the colour of his magical energy to closely resemble Voldemort energy signature. If Voldemort tried to link up to him, he would see the connection as his but in reality it would be Harry's own energy emulating his. Harry had one purpose for this.

When their final confrontation came to pass, he would pour a massive amount of energy through the link and utterly distract Voldemort during their final meet. The mind highway now utterly favoured him and he would push his advantage to its fullest. This weapon could make the difference between living and dying. He would make sure that he was the only one standing when that day came.

Harry had quickly realized the benefits of mastering Occlumency. He was able to absorb and recall knowledge at an incredible speed. By working with aura magic, he had developed a photographic memory. His ability to concentrate on a task had increased exponentially. He was able to completely exclude all outside intrusion while he was concentrating. This would be very useful when practicing magic at Hogwarts. The know-it-all was in for a major ass kicking this year.

Harry now felt that he was fully complete in the arts of mind magic. He felt he was as good as they come, and had invented a whole new approach to Occlumency. He now needed more test subject to practice his Legilimency. Harry believed that he had also discovered far more powerful technique of reaching into another persons mind. As his attack he pictured an Ocean of water surrounding the person's brain, he would picture the person's brain at a shallow depth and look for any cracks.

If he found a crack he would follow it until he was in that person's brain. He would then bring forth the equivalent of a calming charm, which would remove any panicked from the subject and thus allow for a full scan. If the person were versed in the arts of Occlumency, he would mentally project a greater Ocean depth on the mind, which was equivalent to more magical energy pressure.

There was a limit of course. The greater the pressure applied the bigger the energy drains on the Legilimens. This method along with his Dementors virus should be more than enough to distract his opponent and allow him to slip by any defences. If he ran out of time he would try and plant a Trojan.

All that was needed now was to practice his meditation and Occlumency twice a day to maintain his shields and all would be perfect. He would only need 10 minutes per session. He could reach his magical core in seconds now and the remainder of the time would be left to sort through his surface memories and clear his mind.

Another thing he had found easy was Apparition. During the sifting of his memories he had recalled being chased by Dudley and his gang and remembered ending up on top of the school roof. In analyzing that particular memory, he realized that he had subconsciously willed himself to apparate to the roof.

Now that he recalled how Apparating felt, and what his state of mind was at the time he felt he could easily duplicate the process. He had read the theory of course, not wanting to splinch himself. According to his books, there were three ways to apparate. One was to apparate to a place that you already knew. The second was to look at a picture and will yourself there. The final and hardest way was to apparate by co-ordinates.

The way to do this was to bring out a very detailed image of the place you wanted to go, and allow your magic to surround your body. You then willed yourself to your destination. He had been making very good progress at increasing his core channels and creating surface channels. He was able to will his magic to his body very easily. His first try involved Apparating from his bedroom to the downstairs kitchen. He had a clear mental picture of the kitchen and willed his magic to the surface of his skin, He felt himself slide down a conduit and before he knew it he was standing in the kitchen.

He had forced himself to feel and remember that feeling. He memorized that particular aura and filed it. All his books had clearly stressed that one should always have complete control of his mind and not loose concentration at any time during the process otherwise it would lead to a spectacular splinch. That is also the reason that an injured person should not attempt to apparate. The pain would muddle their concentration. In case of injury you should always use a portkey.

The last week of his time flux he had the first two types of Apparating. He had become quite proficient at it. When the time flux ended he would have to practice coordinate Apparating. Coordinate Apparating involved memorizing a map grid which was based on longitude and latitude coordinate. You then willed yourself to a specific location on the map.

It required a lot of concentration. For his test he had picked out an Atlas map of Scotland. He picked a remote spot in the Highlands overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The only thing he did not like about Apparating was the noise. You could limit the noise but could never get rid of it. Also there was the fact that such things as anti- apparition wards that could keep you from Apparating was highly irritating to say the least.

Harry thought about Hogwarts and wondered how the anti-Apparating wards worked? It did not seem to affect the elves somehow, why? They could punch through the wards where human wizards and witches could not. He knew that their magic was different but there had to be something equivalent to what they used. I'll bet no one thought that it could be done.

If he could find a way to emulate the elves' Apparating method, then the advantages in a battle would be incalculable. How many times had he heard stories about Aurors getting iced because they could not apparate out of those damn anti-apparition wards?

Well he would work on that problem on his next set of time flux. He went into the hallway and deactivated _Odin's Eyes_. By the time he was done supper, he decided to take the night off and get some relaxation.

After feeding Anubis, Harry flipped his T.V on and decided to watch this American science fiction series Stargate SG-1.

_**Tonight's series was Meridian where SG-1 visits Kelowna and discovers Naquadria a derivative of Naquadah, which the less-advanced civilization is using to develop a weapon of mass destruction.**_

Well this looked pretty good. He made himself some flavoured popcorn and enjoyed his evening. The next day Harry woke up early. After he had finished his morning routine, he decided to practice Apparating by co-ordinate. He made sure that he had his invisibility cloak, and some pocket money. You never knew when it would be needed.

He checked his watch and decided to go for it. He looked at his map and memorized the grids. He willed his magic to surround him and then clearly pictured his coordinates. He then willed himself there. Before he knew it he was sliding down the conduit. In seconds he had travelled halfway across England and apparated within 5 ft of his intended coordinate. Harry looked around and seeing nobody he did a little happy dance.

He repeated the process 5 more times. On his last try he ended up in Ireland. He finally pictured his bedroom and in no time he found himself back on his bed. God that was awesome he thought but it sure was draining. Harry treated himself to a massive dinner. He ate a full roast beef with mashed potatoes and York Shire Pudding. He included a delicious mushroom sauce, and a pitcher of pumpkin juice to top it off. By the time he was finished, he nearly puked himself he was so full.

No matter he thought, the protein was doing him wonders. Since his workout regiment he had put on a lot of muscles. No longer was he the little scrawny kid, he could clearly define the muscles in his chest, arms and legs and let's not forget a full set of sculpted abdominals. Man, he was turning into a sexy bitch, he thought to himself. He would have to fix his vision somehow; the glasses really made him look dorky. Now to make up a new study schedule

_**June 30- July 6 Odin's Months**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs… 30 min of Tai Chi_

_7:00-7:15 showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 8:15 Meditation/Occlumency and Legilimency training Practice_

_8:15-11:30 Charms and Wards theory/ Wards based on blood magic_

_11:30- 12:00 lunch_

_12:00- 1:30 pm Finish Theory of Magic/Start Review of Year 1-5 charms/transfiguration/DADA_

_1:30- 3:00 Finish Learning High Parseltongue/ Training with Anubis_

_3:00-6:00 Learn mining/smelting/trunk creation magical trade books_

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-9:00 Muggle Science Physic, Chemistry, computer science, meditation_

_9:00-11:00 Review Potions/Herbology year 1-5_

_Bed_

**24 weeks later Odin Time**

The last 24 weeks had seen some truly incredible discoveries for Harry. He had figured out how to apparate using neutral energy. Harry had gone to Diagon alley and sent and owl post to Dobby requesting a meeting with him. Harry had explained that he was trying to find new ways to fight dark wizards and needed to study Dobby's magical aura and energy signature. After having Dobby apparate throughout the house, Harry had figured out that Elves magic was based on a different energy signature. It was very complex and had many layers to their magical energy.

Harry had finally figured out that wards had a central focal point or power source. They also had different ways of feeding on magical energy and converting it. Some wards used ambient magical energy to replenish themselves such as cosmic radiation or the sun's energy. Other wards used magical energy from magical beings to replenish themselves. Some wards were tuned to magical blood such as the ones on his house, which were attuned to a specific magical signature. There were wards that replenished themselves by feeding on ground energy. What was common to all of them was the fact that wards had a focal power source and converted magical energy to a specialized magnetic fields.

This is where the link between wards and magical beings existed. They both converted magical energy into a stream of coherent electrons at the core. In the case of someone Apparating, the magical energy that covered a person's body, would transform into a stream of coherent super condensed electrons that in turn created an extremely localized magnetic field that was powerful enough to warp the fabric of time around that person.

It would then create the equivalent of a small wormhole that would instantaneously transport the person to a location of choice. The problem was that the intense magnetic field had a very specific orientation. Ward that made use of the same electrical energy and they also created a magnetic field of the same orientation. Therefore like two magnets with the same pole, they repelled each other. That was how anti-apparition wards functioned.

Harry had poured a lot of study into muggle physics, and had been very impressed with their knowledge of the physical world. They were a lot more advanced then the magical world that was for certain. Harry figured that if he could transform the magical energy from an electron base to a neutron base then the resulting neutrality should allow him to slip through any anti-apparition wards.

He used the Internet very effectively and found out about neutrinos. Apparently these subatomic particles could pass through anything. They were completely neutral. There were three types of neutrinos: electron, tau, and muon. The more detectable ones were based on electron oscillation frequency. Harry figured that would be the easiest to emulate. The only problem was that he had no idea what their auras looked liked. He needed to go to Switzerland at the CERN institute for nuclear research.

According to the Internet article, this lab should provide him the information he needed.

_Cyclotron Institute scientists also carry out research with relativistic heavy-ion projectiles using accelerators at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The use of extremely high energies, presently up to 200 GeV/nucleon, allows nuclear matter to be compressed to densities even beyond those present in neutron stars_

Harry had gone there three months ago and had managed to get himself in the main lab area. He had actually watched several atomic collisions. Using his magical abilities he had been able to track and record the magical auras of several neutrinos. He now had a thorough idea of what they looked like and how their energy makeup behaved. It had taken him another two months to practice converting his magical energy into neutrinos.

He had successfully apparated using this new form of energy last month. He found that in this mode of travel his concentrated neutrino mass allowed him to simply punch through the fabric of space time and tunnel to his new destination. Using this energy he became invisible and could pass through any matter. He figured he was achieving some kind of very advanced quantum phasing.

The best part was that he did not create a magnetic field and could therefore pass through any wards. He tested that theory by Apparating to the 5th year Gryffindor tower. He was absolutely ecstatic with his results. He knew that the wards would not detect him, as there was no magnetic field to trigger. God magic was grand! He was having the best summer of his life. Hermione would be so jealous of his discoveries. The know-it-all always tried to make everyone look stupid. Let's see how she reacts when the roles are reversed.

He could now create timed portkey, touch and go portkey and reusable portkey. Those last ones were very draining. He found out that the difficulty in creating portkeys was that you had to program your Apparating magical signature into an object. You then have to leave enough residual energy to punch through the space-time continuum and allow the person or persons to be displaced to the new location. Since everyone's magical energy is slightly different.

The meshing of the different magical signatures causes a very small quantum phasing on the parties involved. That is why one feels being pulled by the navel. That is also the reason why this form of travel is highly disorienting. As a final step he had learned to program his new Apparating magical signature into his portkey. His portkey would now be able to also punch through any anti portkey or anti apparition wards.

He was now fully proficient in High Parseltongue. He would soon be able to go through the ritual and open the Sarcophagus. He had been fascinated by his trade books. He never realized the power that a Wizard miner had. He now fully understood how magical trunk worked and how to transfigure internal spaces. The book he had read had fully explained the limiting variable in creating large internal compartment.

One factor had to do with the type of wood selected. The other had to do with the size and shape of the trunk. The more magical energy that could be poured and retained by the material of the trunk, the bigger the internal space would be. They had come up with affinity laws that regulated the amount of energy a trunk could hold. It had explained that crystals could be fused to the walls of the trunk in order to retain even more magical energy.

Typically most wizards only had the power to magically charge pure crystals like diamond, rubies, emeralds, amethyst, or sapphires up to around 40 percent of their full capacity. The strongest wizards could charge them up to 50 percent. The crystals could absorb more, but no one could deliver the power to fully charge it. The wood however could be charged with magical energy up to 100 percent.

Based on the affinity laws he figured if he could manage to fuse enough crystals to the wood and charge the wood panel and the crystals with his own raw magical energy. His calculations showed that he should be able to create a 125,000 cubic meter transfigured living area. This would crate a rectangular prism 50-foot high by 225-foot wide by 300-foot long space.

The dimensions were based on an equilibrium equation that found the perfect balance between the energy contained in the crystals and the wood and the magical space it could provide. You could create a bigger space but that would simply start draining the crystals of their energy. The idea was to maintain the energy in the crystals and wood intact. A permanent non-tampering charm was cast on the construction pieces in order to keep anyone from tampering with the permanent expansion charms. The laws that governed this were very similar to the muggle entropy laws.

Harry figured if he could use an Ironwood such as Lignum Vitae. After looking at his Internet, he had found a description of the wood _"this wood which is considered to be one of the densest woods on earth. It is so dense, oily and strong, that it was commonly used as a metal substitute to make block & tackle or other applications where high strength and self-lubrication were required. As might be expected this oily wood can be polished to an extremely high sheen"_

Harry figured that he might as well treat himself and decorate his trunk with the most aesthetically pleasing woods he could find. He decided that he would also get large samples of _Lancewood, which is, a beautifully patterned wood. There was also __**Jarrah which was known as **__Eucalyptus Marginata. The burl colour of this wood is highly variable with reds, browns and burgundy, and the finished pieces often resemble marble in texture and appearance._

Another wood he wanted to get was the _**Amboyna's; It was also know as **__(Pterocarpus indicus) this is another of the super exotics and one of the most highly prized and expensive woods in extent. It originates from islands in Indonesia and is usually red in colour. It has a very dense burl figure interspersed with curl and contrasting highlights. This truly is a spectacular wood._

With these thoughts in mind, he got his samples booklets and his furniture catalogue and began planning how and what furniture would go where. He also had to decide what wood paneling or marble flooring he would use in what room.

He figured out how the reception area, his library, his bedrooms, green room, his kitchen, his dining room, his gym, his potions lab, bathrooms, his dungeons, his infirmary, his fire place would all look like. He made a sketch for everyone of them. He had looked at a lot of pictures of different types of manors and castles and from all of these ideas he had made up his entire floor plan.

He had studied the filtration and replenishing charms for air and water. He had practiced the charms to create an open sky ceiling like they have at Hogwarts using imbedded Crystals. He would fuse crystals to the wood on the outside of the trunk panels. This was an excellent way of bringing natural sunlight into any room he wanted. He had then studied all of the possible protection charms and wards that he could put on his trunk.

The trunk would be break proof, impervious to scratches, and the elements. It would be nearly indestructible. The Trunk itself would be bigger than your average commercial trunk. The outside dimensions would be 8" in length by 5 feet in width by 4 feet high.

When reduced it would be the size of a muggle cigarette pack instead of a dice cube. The last thing he needed to do was learn how to cast the Fidelius charm in order to hide the trunk from view. He needed to pick an appropriate location. He would also connect his many trunks with their own flue networks.

He already knew where he was going to put his first trunk during the regular school year. He had picked his favourite spot by the lake. There was no way in hell he was going to live in Gryffindor tower. If nothing else, the last 5 years had thought Harry that the Castle was simply not secure enough for him. With his new arrangement, no one would know where or how he lived. It was perfect, he thought.

He also made sure to study the home construction manual, so that he could properly create trusses and I-beams in order to section off the rooms and hook up water and air ducts. He learned how do pluming the magical way. He would have to find a way to create an electric generator that could work on magical energy.

He learned how to hook up magical pantries and Icebox. He also thought himself how to make a magical stove and work it. If his plans worked out, he would make many of these trunk type Manors. They would certainly turn out to be a lot more than most people's houses.

He promised himself to keep a step-by-step journal of his construction detail. When he was done, he wanted to hire certain Elves that he had in mind. They would work from his journals and reproduce his original designs. When they were complete, he would spread them out to strategic locations.

Although his new apparition method and his trunk plans had kept him fairly busy and exited. His most incredible discovery to date had been a month ago. He had been reading his book, the Magical miner, and remembered his vault trunk, which contained all of his minerals. He had the idea to lay them out, catalogue them and study their properties. He had gotten halfway through his mineral contents and decided to take a break one evening and mess around for some fun.

He put his wand tip on a mineral sample and cast the **"Stupefy"** spell. Every time he cast the spell on a different mineral the metallic mineral would glow a certain colour as they absorbed his magical energy. He found some of the colours intriguing. He came upon this black brown substance. There were two large blocks of it and one small one. The small cylinder was about six inches long by about half an inch in diameter. There was no identification card for this mineral. It had a simple question mark.

He decided to cast his spell and aimed his wand tip against one of the cylindrical ends. What happened next would stay etched in his mind forever. The spell flowed through the mineral but instead of emitting a strange colour, it returned his spell at the other end of the cylinder but his stupefy spell was amplified what seemed to be over 10 time its original power.

The spell hit his bedroom wall opposite of Dudley's bedroom. A 6-foot diameter circle was created on the wall. A big hole and lots of debris was left of the wall. He was now had an exceptional view of Dudley's bedroom. Where his stupefy spell had hit, the wall had completely disintegrated!

No stupefy spell should have the power to do this, he thought. He needed to do a lot more research. He had to fully understand what this new mineral was and what it could do. Much more important, he had to find out where to get more of this mineral!


	9. Chapter 8 Training Part 3 The Power

**Chapter 8 " Training Part 3 The Power"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry decided to devote a whole month understanding this mineral. He had a feeling that it would prove invaluable. So he made another study list.

_**July 7-8 Odin's Months**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs… 30 min of Tai Chi_

_7:00-7:15 showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 8:15 Meditation/Occlumency and Legilimency training Practice_

_8:15-11:30 Mineral Study, Mining and Smelting_

_11:30- 12:00 lunch_

_12:00- 1:30 pm Finish Theory of Magic/Start Review of Year 1-5 charms/transfiguration/DADA_

_1:30- 3:00 Prepare ritual study to Open Sarcophagus / Training with Anubis_

_3:00-6:00 Start Studying NEWT level Charms, Transfiguration, Conjuring, DADA_

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-9:00 Muggle Science Physic, Chemistry, computer science, meditation_

_9:00-11:00 Study NEWT Potions and Herbology_

_Bed_

**8 weeks later Odin Time**

Harry had made some very interesting discoveries where the mineral was concerned. He had found several spells that helped him categorize the mineral in question. His first spell was

**" Acclaro- Metallum- Elementum" **this revealed the physical and aura properties of the mineral. He now had a very good mental picture of its energy signature. He still needed more information and cast the following spell

**"Acclaro-Corpusculum-Abalienatio" **this spell allowed the atomic properties to be revealed such as the atomic number and orbital shell of the mineral in question. The reading he got utterly confused him. First the atomic number was 122 and a neutron count of 184. This number placed it well beyond Uranium and Plutonium. However his spells revealed that it was not radioactive but rather a super heavy element? This must be a new stable element. He cast another spell

"**Cerpere-Elementum-Delibo- Corpusculum-Abalienatio" **

Now Harry was very intrigued. It seemed that this particular mineral had impurities of another element with an atomic number of 126 and a neutron count of 224. This mineral seemed to have a similar magical signature as this one but with a higher electron doping. According to its peak signatures it would seem that it could amplify energy even more than the original mineral? Man where did his ancestor get this stuff?

Harry began to scour his Physics book and the science bulletins on the Internet for more information on these elements. He finally found the following articles.

_Atoms consist of a central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons. The nucleus consists of protons and neutrons. But not all combinations of neutrons and protons are stable. In nature, no element heavier than uranium, with 92 protons and 146 neutrons, has been found yet. _

_Scientists can make heavier ones by colliding two large nuclei together and hoping that they will form a new, heavier nucleus for a short time. One of the most significant aspects of the new elements is that their decay sequence is consistent with theories that predict an "island of stability" for atoms containing approximately 114-126 protons and 184-224 neutrons." We jumped over a sea of instability onto an island of stability that theories have been predicting since the 1970s," said nuclear physicist Victor Ninov. He is the first author of a paper on the discovery submitted to Physical Review Letters journal. These new stable elements should not be radioactive._

Another Article read the following

_There has been, however, considerable speculation, based on a number of theoretical calculations that an island of stability might exist in the neighbourhood of Z 114 and N 184. Both of which are thought to be magic numbers. Isotopes in this region, which theoretically should have significantly longer half-lives than the neighbouring known heavy isotopes, are sometimes termed super heavy elements (SHE). There is also evidence for subshells (regions of increased stability) at Z 122 to 126 and N 184 to 224._

Well this clinched it for Harry. His ancestor had unknowingly found this super heavy stable element that had the ability to harness and amplify energy. His ancestor did not have right spells, knowledge or time to pursue its properties. He might not have known what it was, and merely kept it as some kind of curiosity. One thing was for certain; acquiring vast quantities of this mineral would now be his primary goal.

He started picturing all kinds of uses for this material. His first ideas involved a wand and a sword made of this material. Now if he could somehow induce this material in his blood stream he might be able to channel enough energy through his channels to allow for very complex wandless magic. Currently even the most powerful wizards could achieve only very basic charms and some spells equivalent to about a 1st year student.

He needed a plan to find, mine and smelt this new element. His last month had been solely devoted into finding the means to search for this element. He needed the magical equivalent of a muggle satellite. He decided to use magical brooms.

He searched for two whole weeks for the right tracking charm and revealing charms so that the brooms could search for the mineral and he could track the brooms location. To his great surprise most of his answers came from the Marauders trunk. Specifically how they had made the tracking map of Hogwarts.

He first had to encase the broom handle with gem quality crystals. He chose amethyst gems since he had a very large quantity of those. He would then need to charge the crystals with raw magical energy. The crystals would supply the magical energy to power the brooms. Brooms only worked by tapping into a wizard or witches magical energy.

He decided to connect the broom to a world globe that he got from Dudley's room. It was about 3 feet in diameter and had very detailed coordinate and geographical information. He decided to attach the small mineral cylinder to his wand tip, since he would need to add a lot of power the crystals and the charms.

Harry had gone under disguise and bought 30 comet brooms. They were fairly fast and were in abundance. 2000 galleons later he came back with his brooms and began configuring them as search machines. For the brooms to be able to find any mineral deposit they needed a sample of the mineral to compare with.

That's how the seeking charm worked. Sort of like a bloodhound in search of a person. It needed a piece of that person's clothing. He put a permanent sticking charm on the broom handle where the mineral would be attached. He then fused diamond crystals to the element and charged it with magical energy.

He then cast a seeking and recognition charms to it. He added another crystal to the tail of the brooms and cast a variation of the portkey charm. He gave the brooms a range of latitude and longitudinal coordinates which would set the brooms searching patterns. The last thing he did was cast a disillusionment charm to hide the brooms from muggles. If after 30 days the brooms had found nothing, they would portkey back to the Dursleys' living room.

He disengaged Odin's Eye and waited until nightfall. He then released his brooms. In doing this work he had proven to himself that using this element had enabled him to charge the crystals to their 100 percent maximum potential. Now he sure hoped that his plan would work.

He would know in about 30 days. He knew that he would not be able to track the progress of the brooms while in time flux. He would now devote his time to performing the rituals and get the blasted sarcophagus opened.

_**July 9 Odin's Months**_

**4 weeks later Odin Time**

Well Harry had been completely knocked off his feet with the new dark arts knowledge that he had just acquired. It would easily take a minimum of two years to study it all. It had taken 1 solid week of preparation for the ritual. He had to follow the written instruction as outlined from the tombs murals. He had confirmed every step with Anubis.

This had been a blood ritual at its core. Harry had created an Obsidian blade as black as night and had used it to spill his blood at the 4 cardinal runes on the sarcophagus. It had taken 5 drops of magical blood per runes. Every cardinal point glowed a different colour after each incantation. Each Sumerian incantation had to be made and intoned in high parseltongue.

"**Inim-šár-Mir-gùr"**

"**Im-sa-ti-um"**

"**GiŠgal-Lu"**

**"Im-Mar-Tu"**

This was repeated 5 times and when he had finished a high pitched ring followed by a purple light flowed along the seam of the sarcophagus. That lasted for about a minute. The light was then followed by a blinding pain on the right side of his back. It was just below the shoulder blade. The pain was so excruciating that it lasted for the better part of 10 minutes. This was followed by another blinding pain on the left side of his back witch lasted for another excruciating 15 minutes. The pain seemed to be localized.

The pain felt like a very concentrated Cruciatus. When it was done, Harry had collapsed on his bed and fell asleep. The ritual had taken place at night anyway. The next day Harry carried on with his exercises and had a nice hot shower. He felt perfectly fine. Just as he was leaving the bathroom he noticed two Tattoos on his back. It was a black Phoenix and a Black Scorpion facing each other.

He had not counted on getting those but he had to admit that they were pretty damn cool. They were about the size of two Hand widths and were absolutely exquisite in their details. Both of them had jade green eyes just like him. Harry figured that all of the ancient priests were marked as such. Harry did not know that this mark 3000 years ago brought instant fear to any person who recognized it. It was the mark of death to anyone who opposed the priest.

Harry ate his breakfast and opened the sarcophagus. He found a whole slew of jars that had been shrunken in size. There must have been at least 400 jars filled with scrolls. Each Jar was labeled with a number. He enlarged all of the jars and stowed them in his library in his trunk.

He had a cursory look at some of the spells. He never realized how powerful these dark arts spell would be. He found attack spells, dark wards, spells that could bring forth scorpion men from the netherworld. He found spells that would shoot an obsidian lance through the enemies' rectum and impale the person 30 feet in the air.

He found other spells that could create powerful sand storms and leach the moisture out of a person's body. He found other spells that caused a person to melt at your feet. Harry was absolutely flabbergasted at the power of these spells.

He sure was glad that he was 80 percent complete in creating and widening his magical channels. Some of these spells would take an awful lot of power. When he was through learning these, he would make his enemies shit themselves with fear. When they heard him coming, he wanted them so scared that they would just give up. Now speaking of power he almost forgot his mineral quest.

He went over to look at his globe and "Holy Crap!" he exclaimed out loud. He found that 8 of his brooms remained stationary and blinking red on the globe. Harry was beyond happy his creation had worked.

"Thank you Marauders!" he said.

He quickly read the coordinates on the globe and found the names of places. To see if they had any significance he typed those names into the Internet search engine, and what came back out nearly blew his socks off. Apparently each coordinate represented an ancient asteroid impact?

He now figured that the mineral had reached earth from these asteroids, and God only knew where they had come from when they hit Earth. Harry read the location of these Asteroid impacts

_**Crater Name**____**Crater (km)**_ _**Age of Impact (MM years)**_ _**Location**_

Manicouagan 100214 Quebec, Canada

Chicxulub 17065 Yucatan, Mexico

Bedout 180 250 Western Australia

Woodleigh 120 300 Western Australia

Popigai 10035.7 Eastern Russia

Kara-Kul 52 5 Tajikistan

Kara 65 73 Russia

Takoonooka 55 128 Queensland Australia

Well first things first. Harry needed to pack, and also buy more of large compartment trunks. He needed them to store the minerals. He would purify it on site and extract its derivatives. He figured 5 trunks would do the job. He concealed him self and apparated to Diagon alley. He went directly to _Chromatics Trunks and Satchel._

He went and bought himself 5-compartment storage trunk. They have three extremely large compartments, specifically designed to hold lots of stuff and nothing else. Each space was about 20 by 30 feet. All of the trunks could be reduced. 200 galleons later Harry walked out of the store and apparated back to his bedroom.

He took one of his pantries, and Odin's Eye with him. He apparated to all of the brooms' coordinates and scanned the areas. He made sure to record the exact broom coordinates. He collected all of the brooms and stowed them in one of the newly bought trunks.

He then decided to first mine the impact crater in Yucatan Mexico. When he got there, he first set up camp. He was in Mexico in a secluded alcove overlooking a hill that led down to a beach. 'Well,' he thought, 'if the vein reached underneath the water, this would get interesting.'

After he had set up his trunk and cast his wards, he decided to review his book on wizard mining. He followed the books instruction and decided to get a mental picture of the mineral vein. He had to concentrate on the energy signature of the mineral in question.

Thank god he was a wizard. For wizards, the technique involved letting his magic pour out of him and scan for the minerals energy signature. Based on the strength of the signature or aura if you will, you then created a three dimensional map of the vein. Thank god he had mastered Occlumency, and had the mental discipline to carry this out. It required keeping track of a lot of details. It's kind of funny, his magical miners' book had strongly hinted at the usefulness of being an Occlumens for doing mining work.

He let his magic scan the area and found that the biggest concentration of the mineral was at the beachfront. Harry estimated that the vein was buried at about a 10 km depth. The vein of this mineral had a core of about 300 meters by 400 meters in length based on the strength of the signature.

The core had more or less the shape of an American football. Harry figured that he could carry out his mining from his current location. He would have to mine the mineral bit by bit in order to allow the hollowed portion to slowly fill in with the surrounding dirt and water. The extraction process was a simple displacement charm with a shit load of power behind it. He would need maximum emotion and concentration. At that point he engaged Odin's Eye and began his quest.

_**July 10 Odin's Month**_

**4 weeks later Odin Time**

The morning after Harry had disengaged _Odin's Eye_, he remembered how draining his last 4 weeks had been. Mining required an enormous amount of magical energy. He had used the displacement charm **"Exterebro-Murra" **for removing the mineral from the vein. He then used the **"Expurgo-Mura" **charm for purifying the mineral. The spells were fairly simple, but you had to constantly concentrate on the aura of the mineral in order to extract and purify. It was this constant concentration that was draining. He had barely stayed awake at night to study his scrolls.

He had managed to extract 3200 lb of purified atomic number 122 and another 675 lb of atomic number126. He decided to give these elements some names. He couldn't keep referring to them by their atomic numbers. Remembering the Stargate show that he had watched earlier, he decided to call atomic number 122 **"Naquadah"** and atomic number 126 **"Naquadria".** No sense racking his brain to find suitable names when these would suffice and sounded pretty good at any rate.

The extraction process had been fairly quick, but the purifying process had been brutal. He had managed to achieve 99.87 percent purity for both minerals. He had been amazed at the texture and colour of Naquadria. It was pitch black, and felt wet and cold to the touch. The mineral seemed to possess translucence to it.

When it came to energy amplification Naquadria blew Naquadah right out of the water. Where Naquadah amplified his original magical energy above 10 times its original power, Naquadria amplified that same energy over 100 times the power.

It was simply right out of this world. The only problem he could see was that if too much magical energy were fed to it, the mineral matrix would break down, and cause the mineral to decay to Naquadah. Harry had wasted about 11 pounds of the stuff until he had found a doping agent that would stop the mineral from decaying yet keep its amplification capabilities intact.

He doped Naquadria with powdered sapphires. He ended up with a 1-part gem to 1000 parts mineral in the matrix. This created an extremely stable platform. The doping agent acted as a catalyst to prevent a runaway reaction. He made sure that all of the Naquadria extract was mixed in this fashion.

He wanted to mine another site before going back to Privet Drive. He didn't want to go from his self-imposed jail for too long and arouse suspicion. He had fooled the Order with disguising charms by making himself look like his aunt or uncle working in the backyard.

Every time he shut down _Odin's Eye_ he made an outside appearance. He had to make the Order believed that the Dursleys were home. He managed to cast disillusionment charms to make the car look like it was gone. His little deceptions had been very successful so far.

The order had no idea how much he had changed and grown so far. If the old coot thought he could control him, he was sorely mistaken. When they finally found out how much he had changed, they would shit themselves. No doubt they would think that he had gone dark, but so fucking what? Like these weaklings matter anyway.

By the afternoon, he packed everything and reduced all of his trunks. He apparated to his next destination at Manicouagan, Quebec. When he got there he could not believe how god damn cold it was. Even in the middle of summer. There seemed to be swarms of mosquitoes and these black bugs. He looked around and he seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. It didn't matter though; he was not taking any chances. He cast a series of wards and concealment charms. He set up camp, and Activated Odin's Eye.

_**July 11 Odin's Month**_

**4 weeks later Odin's Time**

Harry reflected on his last four weeks and decided that he had enough minerals for now. He had managed to extract 4200 pounds of Naquadah and 852 pounds of Naquadria from this vein. He had also managed to study of lot of his ancient dark arts. With this new mineral, he had been thinking about making himself a new wand.

He had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to achieve but needed to do some more research. In reading his wand-making book, he had come across a very important paragraph concerning charging crystals with raw magic. For one thing, he had been wrong about the fact that crystals had never been fully charged in the past. Some crystals had been fully charged by combining the magical output of a half dozen wizards and witches.

Marcel Ollivander in 1264 had formulated a theory that once a crystal was fully charge, any more energy thrown at the crystal would simply turn it into a very powerful focusing lens. The crystal would concentrate and focus the energy thrown at it. He had tried making wands out of crystals but they had not worked properly and he could not find the reason for this failure.

Harry remembered reading about Lasers in his muggle Physics book, and concluded that this was in a way the same principle. In a laser the coherent photons had to build up to a strength level before they could be released from the reflecting lens!

The handle and core of his new wand would obviously be made of Naquadria. He would have to find a very high purity gem for the tip of his wand. He would also have to fuse high quality gems crystals to the Naquadria shaft in order to keep the energy focused in the shaft.

His only problem was to find a proper sheath for the wand core. The material needed to have outstanding heat resistance and dissipation properties. The current woods used in wands would be totally unworkable. They could not handle the power amplification of Naquadria. The wood would be unable to dissipate the generated heat quickly enough. The wood would burn to cinders. The crystals also need to be fully charged with his raw magical energy.

Harry decided to apparate back to his bedroom and get all of his stuff sorted out. Once in his bedroom, he got settled in. He decided to make an outside appearance as Vernon Dursley. Must keep the robots guessing he mused. After lunch he decided to apparate to the apparition point outside of Gringotts. He would go and deposit one of his mineral trunks into his family vault for safekeeping.

Harry had been thinking about his training, and decided that he would benefit from being tutored by renowned masters in their fields. He would try and buy the services of the best tutors that money could buy. He decided on Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, Spell Creation, Duelling, and Martial Arts training with sword fighting. On the last one he had a particular type of training in mind. He went to see Griphook.

When he got to Griphook's office, the first thing that he noticed was how much the Goblins office had changed, it looked much more opulent, and Harry quickly approved of these new changes. Let everybody know of the importance of handling the Potter account.

"Hello Griphook!"

"Ah, Mr Potter, how very nice to see you, how may I be of service?"

"Well, first let me tell you that the help you provided me earlier has been invaluable to me, it has allowed me to shall we say become a much more accomplished wizard!" Griphook smiled at this statement. Harry seeing the feral grin on Griphook continued.

"That being said, I believe that books and self training can only go so far!" Griphook nodded at his statement.

"I have decided to buy the services of the best tutors to further develop my training. For the subjects I have in mind, here is a list! With your extensive contacts I was wondering if you could help me find the following tutors" Griphook looked at the list and Harry swore he saw another smile on his face!

"Well Sir there is nothing I like better than a challenge! When would you like to have your tutors?"

"How about July 20?"

"That should be no problem sir, I can definitely get you started", they shook hands and Harry left Gringotts.

As he was walking down the street, he saw the sign _Knights and Squires. _He remembered his promise to get the basilisk skin. It was getting late in the afternoon, so he made a mental note to get the basilisk from the chamber of secrets, on his next time flux break.

Harry apparated back to his room and decided to do some research. He needed to find an appropriate material to complement his Naquadria wand core. Harry had done a lot of experimenting on his new core material and knew that the sheath covering the Naquadria core needed to be a material that had very high thermal dissipation and needed to have good wear resistance as well. It also had to withstand extreme physical stress.

After about 30 minutes of searching the Internet, he stumbled on a muggle material called Rhenium. The definition of the metal was as such:

Rhenium was a bright silvery material. It was a pure refractory metal and is extremely attractive for high temperature structural and energy system applications, such as space and missile propulsion systems. Used either as a pure structural material or as a liner in conjunction with graphite or carbon-carbon structural materials, rhenium can provide erosion resistance for components in high temperature rocket engines and hot gas valves.

Rhenium has many advantages over other candidate liner materials. Rhenium has a melting point of 3180°C (5756°F), exceeding all other metals except tungsten. Rhenium is the only refractory metal that does not form a carbide, yet it has a significant solubility for carbon which ensures an excellent bond strength between the two materials.

Rhenium has repeatedly outperformed all other coating candidates on hot section components. Of the refractory metals, rhenium has the greatest tensile and creep-rupture strength at elevated temperatures. Rhenium also possesses a wear resistance second only to osmium among the metallic elements, and the highest strain hardening coefficient of any metal.

Harry decided to coat the outside gem crystal surrounding the Naquadria shaft with Rhenium. The Rhenium will quickly dissipate any heat generated from the core. He also decided that his new wand not only be a masterpiece of functionality but also a work of art. He would engrave a scorpion and an Egyptian cobra along the sheath of his wand with black diamonds. The eyes of the scorpion would be Emeralds and the eyes of the cobra would be sapphires.

The Hand shaft was going to be engraved with many different Runes. Some of the runes would protect the wand from possession. Anyone but the owner of the wand would feel the equivalent of a Crucio spell if they were caught holding his wand. It would have a permanent summoning charm, where the owner could summon his wand from anywhere in the world.

There would also be runes to prevent any tracking of dark arts magic by the ministry. Many of the Runes he had gotten from his Sarcophagus made use of blood magic. In order to sculpt his new wand, the first thing that Harry did was to memorize Ollivander's wand making book. Harry found it to be fascinating reading. The runes and the Naquadria shaft would have to absorb his blood in order to properly align its properties to his magical signature only.

As Harry read Ollivander's book, he became very impressed with the knowledge accumulated over the centuries. For instance he never knew that when a wand chooses a wizard or a witch, it turned out that the best compatibility that a magical person could expect was around 80 percent. This meant that only 80 percent of a wizard or witch magical energy was used in the spell, the remaining magical energy was converted to heat.

That is why large quantities of spell work would leave a person feeling tired and drained. According to Ollivanders ancestors, the best wands should have a wand cores surrounded by gem quality crystals. The crystals should then be fully charged with that person's raw magical energy. That way the crystals would act as a focusing lens and concentrate all of that person's magical energy along the wand core.

However, this method of wand making has not been successful since no single wizard or witch has been able to fully charge said crystals. Some gem crystals had been fully charged using the combined magical energy of half a dozen wizard and witches, but the experimental results showed that these wands became even less efficient then current magical wand cores.

Ollivanders theorized that there were two reasons for this. The first one is that the combined magical signatures of all these wizards and witches had destabilized the crystal matrix and thus rendered the gem unusable as a focusing lens.

Another set of experiments had allowed only one wizard to charge the crystals. This turned out to also be a failure. The theory for this is because since the crystals was never fully charged; then the crystals would steal that person's magical energy while they casting a spell in an attempt to fully charge themselves.

Theoretically Ollivander feels that if a wand core is imbued with a magical person's blood, and if the crystals surrounding the wand core were to be fully charged, than that person should achieve 100 percent compatibility with their wands. The wand would focus all magical energy into spell work.

After sketching on paper what he thought he wanted his wand to look like. He started listing his supplies and completed his calculations. Based on a series of calculations his new wand was going to be 13" long. The hand shaft was going to be 6 inches long by 1 inch in diameter and made of Naquadria. The main core was also going to be Naquadria fused to the hand shaft and was going to be 7" long. The main core diameter would taper from 1 inch at the end of the hand shaft to 1/2 in at the tip of the wand.

He would engrave the scorpion and the cobra along the side of the Rhenium sheath. He would then fuse black diamonds into the engraving. The hand shaft would also be engraved with the runes and sapphires gems would be fused into the rune engravings. The demarcation point between the hand shaft and the main core would have a 1/8 inch wide sapphire ring fused to the Naquadria.

He looked at his calendar and noticed that tonight would be a full moon. According to his blood magic books, blood runes would have to be done at midnight tonight. So he would have to make his wand tonight if he was going to use it to build his trunk.

He searched the Internet for a Rhenium wholesaler and found _HC Stack Gmb Ltd_ from Sheffield. Harry decided he would apparate there and buy a box of extruded Rhenium rods. Harry also remembered that he needed to buy his exotic woods for his custom built trunk. After another 35 minutes on the Internet, he found the _Gallery of Woods_ in South Hampton.

He looked at his watch and it showed 4:00 pm. He had to get a move on and quick. He picked up one of his unused mineral trunks and reduced it. He picked up his cloak and apparated to the metals merchant first.

40 minutes later, Harry ended up buying 50 12-inch long rods at 1-inch diameter. The rods were exquisite, and had a semi glossy silver look to them. Then he apparated to _the_ _Gallery of Woods_. After an hour, Harry had £60,000 pounds worth of wood. He walked out back of the store where the delivery station was. He told the man that he was waiting for his delivery truck. He waited to make sure no one was around and shrunk all of his materials and stowed it all in his trunk. With that complete he apparated back to Privet Drive.

Harry was really enjoying his new mode of transportation. Long distances left him a bit tired, but he recovered quickly enough. Harry looked at the time and decided to treat himself to a nice supper. When this was complete, he decided to get all of his materials together. He might as well make himself two wands. He took out two Naquadria rods, and some high quality gem crystals.

He took out amethysts, black diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires. He then took out his book on runes and blood rituals. Over the next two hours, Harry practiced reviewing and tracing ancient runes. An hour before midnight, Harry took his wand and pictured in his mind the size and taper he wanted. He then cast the shaping spell **"Ductus- Flatum"** he looked down and smiled. His two wand pieces were perfectly sculpted. He then carved the runes into the shaft handle.

With the following spells **"Caelator -Vetus"** he inscribed a summoning rune. This rune would cause his wand to return to him no matter where it was. He inscribed a pain rune that would cause the equivalent of the Crucio spell on anyone who picked up his wand. The runes would be attuned to his magical signature only.

He etched another rune that would keep the charged crystals from ever discharging their energy. No sense wasting a lot of energy recharging the crystals. He etched another rune that would keep his wand from being summoned by anyone else but him. This effectively rendered Expelliarmus useless on him.

When he was done etching both wand shafts, it was time to go outside into the full Moon and carry out the blood rituals. He picked up the Rhenium sleeves, the gems and the Naquadria rods. He took his watch and pressed the locator map. 'Good,' he thought, 'Mundungus was about 200 feet across the street facing the front of the house. There was no one in the vicinity of the backyard. He picked up his book, his dagger and wand supplies and made his way to the back yard.

Once he was in the backyard, he laid out a white sheet. He laid out the crystals and wand materials before him. He looked at his watch and it read 12:00 am. For his first wand he took the sapphire gems and fused the sapphire into each rune by casting **"Fusum-Crystallus"**.

He then took the amethysts crystals and fused a 1/8-inch coating of it to the shaft of the Naquadria. An elliptical sapphire was fused halfway into the tip of the Naquadria shaft. He then lifted his right palm above his head, and facing the moon took his dagger and cut diagonally while he intoned the following spell.

"**Ab- Invoco- Atis-Coniunctio-Ritus" **Mother night I invoke the power of blood. He then allowed his blood to fully coat the crystals covering the wand tip gem, the wand shaft and the runes. He then cast a quick healing charm on his hand. At that point he noticed his blood being absorbed by the crystals and a deep blue light emitted from the wand.

The crystals had fully absorbed his blood and thus his magical signature. He took his holly wand and attached a small cone of Naquadria to the tip of his wand. He then made sure to touch each crystal with the Naquadria tip and proceeded to fully charge all of the crystals with his raw magical energy.

This was easily done with the energy amplification power of Naquadria. He knew when the crystals were fully charged, because they glowed a deep crimson red. He then cast the following spell **"Impedio- Eluvies"** this would permanently keep the crystals from ever discharging their energy. He then fused a Rhenium sleeve to the crystals shaft for protection.

His finished his first wand by etching a Scorpion and an Egyptian Cobra on the Rhenium sleeve. He then fused black diamonds into the engravings. He fused two sapphire studs for the eyes of the Cobra and two emerald studs for the eyes of the scorpion. The runes and the tip of his first wand were fused with a sapphires gem.

On his second wand he etched a Phoenix and a Scorpion. The same black diamonds were fused to the etchings on the Rhenium shaft. The Scorpion got emerald studs again, and the Phoenix received the ruby studs. The runes and wand tip were fitted with emeralds.

Harry had managed to do all of this delicate work with his holly wand. He did not want to touch his new wands until he was in the basement of the house. He was too scared of the effects the wands would produce if Ollivander's theories were correct. The wands were magically lifted and put in a box. He took some time to regain some energy, he felt utterly drained. When he felt sufficiently recovered, he cleaned up the bloodstains on the sheet, and picked up the remaining materials.

He went back inside the house and made sure to lock all of the doors. He went downstairs and opened the box. He finally took the time to look at his creations and he marvelled at the beauty of these wands. They were by far the most beautiful wands he had ever seen. The best part was that no one could use his babies against him. According to Ollivander's theory, they were completely attuned to him. His magical signature was permanently attuned to the crystals forever.

When he finally picked up his first wand, he felt a rush of power the likes of which he had never felt. The air surrounding him began to crackle heat up and swirl. The light that came out of his wand was the equivalent of a solar flare. The basement was bathed with purple and blue lights. The light was utterly blinding. Harry could not believe the feeling he was getting.

The feeling of his original wand had been a travesty compared to this. This wand felt like an extension of his body. Harry looked at the floor, and found a penny. He decided to try his new wand by casting a **"Wingardium-Leviosa"** spell on the penny. The penny not only lifted but went right through the basement ceiling and lodged somewhere above that.

"**HOLY SHIT!"** Said Harry out loud, he was flabbergasted! He needed to learn much finer power control when using these new wands. Thank god he didn't try a Reducto spell; he would have blown up the house to bits! He repeated the same experience with his second wand and got the same result. Harry could not be happier. He had taken a theoretical concept on wand making and had made it work 100 percent.

Well, he thought, Ollivanders ancestor would be vindicated on his theories. Harry now remembered that his spells would be amplified over 100 times in power, he again made a mental note to remember to retrain himself to adjust to the new power levels.

Harry thought of his new wands, and mused that it took his discovery of Naquadah and Naquadria properties to make his theories come true he mused. Harry understood a very important concept that night. All science builds on the shoulders of its ancestors. He remembered a famous quote from the muggle scientist Einstein, _"It is better to be creative than to have knowledge"_.

'Fuck! When I get around to showing these to Ollivander, he is going to shit himself!' Harry looked at his watch and found that it was 2:15 am. He needed to get some sleep. Harry picked up his wands and material and went up to his bedroom. He took 15 minutes to clear his mind and didn't bother getting undressed. He fell asleep the moment his head hit his pillow.

Harry woke up the next morning at around 9:00 am. He completed his morning ritual albeit a bit late and decided that his next flux time would be spent creating his manor and studying the scrolls exclusively.

_**July 12-15 Odin's Months**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs… 30 min of Tai Chi_

_7:00-7:15 showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 8:15 Meditation/Occlumency and Legilimency training Practice_

_8:15-11:30 Work on Trunk_

_11:30- 12:00 lunch_

_12:00- 1:30 pm NEWT level 6-7 years charms/transfiguration/DADA_

_1:30- 5:30 Sarcophagus Dar Arts theory and Training _

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-8:00 Physical Magic and Theory, work with magical channels._

_9:00-11:00 Study NEWT Transfiguration, Runes, Arithmancy _

_11:00 – 11: 30 pm Meditation/Occlumency and Legilimency review._

**16 weeks later Odin Time**

Harry reflected on his last 12 weeks' achievements. His biggest of course was the completion of his new home. It was to say the least a work of art. He had singularly managed to create the size, prestige and comfort of a Manor within the confined of a trunk. The space and comfort were befitting that of a king he thought. The entrance to his manner consisted of a double door system made of Rhenium. Harry had then created hand portals.

The entrance portal into the trunk and the inner doors to the Manor inside the trunk worked on blood magic. A person had to be keyed in by blood. Their magical auras needed to be recorded to allow them entrance into the Manor. Harry had made it so that he could add or remove anyone he liked from entering his trunk.

They could only be keyed in with Harry present. Once they were keyed in, they could enter the trunk and manner at will. Every room inside the trunk manor also had access portals, but they were only keyed to a person's magical signature. This way he could keep track some of his rooms a secret like the dungeons. Also the crystals inside the recognition portals could only be activated with his magical energy during the key in process. Harry figured he had achieved a very sophisticated security system. This way he had control over which room's people could access inside the trunk.

He had managed to create an ultra comfortable reception area, a fully decked out kitchen, duelling chamber, prison chamber, a smiting and potions lab, a green house, a muggle size semi Olympic pool area, a fully decked out gym, and a formal dining area.

The upstairs area contained 20 fully decorated bedrooms not including his master suite, which was a thing of beauty. All of the floors were marble. The floors had been charmed to feel warm. The main reception area was cantered around a fireplace. Obsidian pillars flanked all entrance to the major areas of his trunk manner. The main fireplace mantle was decorated in green and black marble. The ceiling was charmed as per Hogwarts main Hall, so that the sky was made visible.

Harry had been able to imbed and fuse fist size diamond cones that he had managed to enlarge into the trunks outer Ironwood panels. The diamond apex reached to the other side of the wood panel where they could be tapped. The diamonds were able to channel sunlight and distribute it inside the trunk rooms.

He had hanged the whole Potter family tree above the main fireplace. He managed to also incorporate a full Library. He had moved all of his Potter and Black Vault books into his new living arrangement. He had used nothing but the best materials. He had heavily relied on muggle comfort creations in his new abode.

He had whirlpools in the bathrooms and special magically enchanted chairs in the main living areas and bedroom. All bedrooms were completed with heavy Oak or maple furniture. All of the floors were covered in tiles or marbles. The beds were all King or Queen sized poster beds. The mattresses were made to adjust and meld the person's body for perfect support.

The walls were covered in different exotic woods that he had bought. The hallways were filled with paintings, Statues, and gargoyles. He made a special effort to include a lot of Egyptian statues and arts in honour of the sarcophagus. He had many dragon statues. His own bedroom had a full king size poster bed, with a matching burrow and nightstands.

His room was decorated in emerald green and pastel colours. He had a plush emerald area carpet in his room. His bedroom also included a separated room that contained a massive work desk with lamps and all sorts of decorations. He also had a mini library where he kept some of his favourite books. He had his own ceiling charmed to be able to see the night sky.

His bathroom was twice the size of the Prefects bathroom at Hogwarts. He had a full whirlpool baths and a triple marble sink. He had full mirror cabinets. The loo was also made of white marble. All of the room were tied to the fresh air system and muggle style lighting. He had crystal chandeliers installed in all of the rooms. Each room had a unique crystal chandelier design.

During his last 12 weeks, Harry had also invented a Naquadria Reactor. He had studied muggle reactors and generators. He figured he could build a reactor that could convert magical energy to muggle electricity. He had invented the reactors by creating a crystal bank that was charged with raw magical energy.

The crystals slowly discharged through a Naquadria cylinder bank that fed a converter crystal that was charmed to replicate the energy signature of 220-volt electricity. Another generator of the same make was used to power the new wards that he had installed. According to his calculations, the power crystals would need recharging in about 50 years.

These muggle electricity generators powered the lights, the kitchen appliances, the green house, the air circulation system and the water heaters. A generator was installed for the upstairs area, and another one for the downstairs area. Harry had installed an utterly draconian system of security.

Wards were installed in every room. As mentioned before, all rooms had to be keyed in to a person's magical signature to allow entrance. There was a special portkey area that was set up so that only his portkeys could be used. The wards were based on ancient dark magic and would cause any uninvited guest some serious health complications.

He had put every useful charm that he knew on the trunk. He had charms to withstand any magical or physical damage, weather protection charms, water purification charms, air purity control charms, temperature control charms, and floo recognition charms. Floo travel was available if it was from trunk to trunk. He cast Concealment Charms to confuse muggle and wizard kind alike if they were near his trunk. In his studies of the sarcophagus scrolls, he had come up with the dark equivalent of the Fidelius charm except that the caster could act as his own keeper.

He had cast the dark Fidelius charm. Nobody would be able to see his trunk unless he keyed them to it. He had spent a great deal of time learning the runes and incantations to cast the modified Fidelius. Harry had never cast such a complicated charm before. It involved calculating the appropriate charmed volume and casting the appropriate runes to activate the charms. With his new wand he had poured so much power into his charms that he did not think anybody could break them.

All of this space in his trunk had been possible due to the Naquadah and the crystals that Harry had been able to fuse with the Ironwood. The resulting magical energy that the trunk panels had been able to absorb had been beyond anything invented yet.

The crystals and the Naquadah fused to the trunk panels had been the repository of stored magical energy that had allowed such immensely stable expansion charms. Harry made sure to keep a very detailed journal of the construction process. He had essentially a written step-by-step manual on the creation of his trunk. He had a very specific reason from the very beginning for doing this. He had every intension of hiring Dobby in the future; his main job in the short term would be to build identical trunks to the one he had currently created.

After his trunk had been built, he had moved all of his possession inside the newly built Potter Manor. In his mind he now needed to have 5 more copies of his trunk. With his step-by-step instructions, anybody could duplicate his creation.

If he could duplicate his original trunk, he had the appropriate locations figured out. Also during the last twelve weeks he had reviewed some of his Vault papers and had discovered a Potter castle on the western coast of Scotland on the Island of Tyree.

Apparently the Castle had been abandoned so 100 years ago as the main seat of Potter clan in favour of a Manor in England. With so many worldwide properties to live at, a castle off the coast of Scotland had perhaps not been appealing enough to his ancestors. Not to mention that this property had been buried fairly deep in the vault papers, it is very probable that it had been forgotten.

According to the magical property deeds, the castle had strong wards, disillusionment charms, concealing charms and anti tracking charms. Apparently a particularly powerful stasis charm had been cast on the castle to preserve it. He decided that he was going to check it out. If he liked it then he would improve the wards significantly and would get some help and remodel the castle interior to match the opulence of his trunk.

Harry also noticed that during the last twelve weeks, he had done a lot of soul searching and came to the conclusion that his self-imposed loneliness was starting to get to him. He needed to get out and meet some people. He needed to make new friends and wanted to travel.

His new mode Apparating certainly allowed him to go anywhere he wanted. He would have to make it a habit and get out on the town more often. He would not go into London if he could help it, but there was still the rest of Europe, the Pacific and many other interesting places.

He made sure that he had his dark notes with him and apparated to the castle coordinates. When he got there he was pleasantly surprised by the look of the castle. For one thing it was made of jet-black granite stone blocks. It had several turrets and a grand entrance archway.

The grounds were in a bit of disrepair but nothing that could not be greatly improved with some care. He noticed a moat and a drawbridge. The castle was nowhere the size of Hogwarts, but it was certainly bigger than a manor. He also noticed that the there was a slanted surrounding the castle that was nearly ¾ the height of the wall.

The ledge seemed to have a gargoyle set every 20 feet apart and every one of them seemed to be an original design. Harry thought that this was rather impressive in itself. Harry took his time exploring the grounds and found a forest on the back of the castle that had some magical creatures there; he also felt that the wards covered a very large area up to and including the beach.

Harry was a little worried thought because he felt that the wards had weakened considerably over time. They were not too spectacular either. He would have to change that if he decided to make this castle his official home base. After some more scouting, he noticed a stone walkway leading down to the beach. He followed it down until he reached the beachfront. The beach it self was in the shape of a horseshoe, with cliffs and caves sculpted by the sea leading into the walls.

He decided to come back later and practice his magic on the cliffs. He went back up to the castle and decided to go in. He realized that he had to take down the stasis field first. When that was complete he entered the reception hall, and what he found there was utterly breath taking. It was richly decorated and had a significant amount of rooms.

He inspected the kitchens, the library, the bedrooms, restrooms, shower rooms, gymnasium, duelling area, game rooms, relaxation rooms, botanical rooms, a full smith's room for weapons making, a potions lab that needed to be fully restocked. The dungeons that needed some securing work. There was also what Harry called a war room or situation room. There were in all 50 bedrooms. The dining room seemed to be charmed just like Hogwarts main hall. He also found the wards room, which had some poor looking crystals and Harry, could tell that they were nearly depleted.

Harry felt that the castle needed a bit of work but it was also a perfect place to make his seat of power. He loved the antiquity and the feeling that he got from the castle. This is where centuries of Potters had lived and died. He felt such a warm feeling here that he immediately felt like he had come home. Harry decided that he would move here as soon as possible. First thing he needed to do was to get the wards fully updated and improved. He would completely rebuild the crystal room. He was going to employ as many dark wards as possible.

He was also going to cast the most powerful anti tracking charm that he had, and finally he was going to cast a blood ward and the dark Fidelius. When he was finished, no one would be able to come in without his consent. When he completed the wards he had to seek certain house elves that he had in mind. They would be in charge of replicating the many decorating ideas from his trunk. He would draw up a full set of plans of what he wanted.

He would upgrade all the floors to marble to match his trunk manor. The walls would all be decked out as per his trunk with exotic wood finish. He would also upgrade all of the baths to marble floors, washbasins, and loos and would incorporate muggle whirlpools and full spray showers.

He wanted heat lamps and all manners of comforts. All of the bedrooms would be redecorated as per his trunk. He figured that he could power this whole castle with just one big reactor, but decided that putting all his eggs in one basket was stupid. He would build a reactor solely dedicated to the wards, another one to power all of the dungeons, base floor rooms, and 2nd floor rooms. Its own separate generator would power the remaining upper floors.

He decided to clear Privet Drive right away. He first needed to get a good supply of high quality quarts crystals. He first went to Diagon Alley. Whit his cloak on he made his way to _Dauphines_, which was a supplier of high quality crystals of all sorts. He ended up buying 50,000 galleons worth of high purity crystals. When he was done with his purchases, he apparated back to Privet drive.

He would have to come back at the end of his time flux and make an appearance for the idiots. He got all of his trunks together and packed all of his possessions. He apparated back to the castle and decided to set his trunk by the fireplace. He took his trunk with the quartz crystals and made his way to the wardroom. It was more or less located at the centre of the castle and below the upper floor.

He decided to change the doors to Rhenium and install access portals keyed to blood magic. He went inside and transfigured his quarts crystals into 3 ft high by 1 ft diameter Hexagonal modules. Harry Created 10 of these modules. He then fixed a Naquadria amplifying cone rod over each module. Over a 12-hour period, he charged all of the crystals with raw magical energy to their full capacity. He had to take many energy supplement potions.

This was extremely draining work. When the modules were all charged he charm signature on each crystals. He had a concealing, anti animagus, anti regular Apparating, anti regular portkey, anti magic detection ward, a dark ward that absorbs spell energy, a repelling ward, …etc. and finally the dark Fidelius. It was now July 17 and he needed to get back into his training. He had to contact Dobby this early this afternoon.

He could not afford the time to go back and send a mail message by post. He decided that Anubis would probably like a change of scenery.

_**sss **_Anubis I need to get to Hogwarts, would you like to come for a trip? _**sss**_

_**sss**_ Yes, Master I would very much like to get out for a while! _**sss**_

Harry chuckled, He loved Anubis - he was so straight forward. If only people could be more like him. Harry took him and wrapped him around his body. And figured if he was going to Hogwarts, he might as well take care of one of his commitments. He would first apparate to the Chamber of Secrets to skin the basilisk. He would need battle robes soon.

With that thought in mind, he pictured the chamber of secrets and brought out as much detail and he could remember from his second year. He suddenly winked out and in less than a second he was standing in the chamber of secrets. It was completely dark. He cast a Lumos Solarum and to his surprise there was no noticeable smell of decay.

The basilisk corpse looked as if it had been killed yesterday! Harry remembered the events of that year with a shudder. He looked at the torches on the wall and cast an incendiary spell to get them lit.

He decided to not waist any time and proceeded to cut up the Basilisk. He made sure to keep all of the fangs, spleen, liver, and skinned the animal completely. The rest of the carcass he preserved in one of the trunks he bought. Thank God he had reviewed his magical creatures' books. You needed a very special spell to cut into Basilisk skin. When this was done, he put the whole skin into one of his mineral trunk. Now he thought he needed to get in touch with a very hyper elf!


	10. Chapter 9 Training Part 4 Dark Magic

**Chapter 9 " Training Part 3 Dark Magic"**

**Warning: This chapter contains gore and violence. This chapter onward the story is strictly M rated**.

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry decided that it would be best to apparate to Gryffindor tower and summon Dobby from there. He concentrated and within seconds he was standing in the 5th year dorms. He then concentrated on summoning Dobby. He didn't think it would take long for him to show up. Harry felt like he had a connection to the little guy. Suddenly he heard a POP and within seconds someone was grabbing him from his waist. Harry looked down and sure enough Dobby was holding him.

"Hello Dobby."

"Oh, Harry Potter Sir! Dobby heard you is callings him Sir, And I is came right away" He said all of this while bouncing up and down and a toothy smile from ear to ear.

"How are you doing Dobby?"

Dobby began tearing up right away, overwhelmed that the great wizard Harry Potter would care so much about him!

With tears in his eyes and a joyful bounce Dobby answered, "I is happy master Harry Potter Sir!"

Harry's face frowned and told Dobby that he was not his master but his friend.

This of course got Dobby crying even more. "Oh Harry Potter Sir is too good for Dobby I tells you. You is so kind and wonderful and generous. What could Dobby possibly do for you sir?"

"Dobby I wanted to ask you if you would like to work for me."

Harry looked on expectantly, he did not really know what to expect from Dobby. He felt he was in unknown territory here. Of course when it came to Dobby, it was not too hard to imagine what he was thinking. Currently the little elf was bouncing all around Gryffindor 5th year dorm and not settling one bit. "Dobby!" Harry cried

The elf suddenly stopped and said "Oh! I is sorry Great wizard Harry Potter sir!"

Gee Harry thought he had to break him from this hero worship and fast!

"Please Dobby just call me Harry"

Dobby just bobbed his head indicating he understood, but Harry felt that he wasn't going to change one bit.

"Dobby, I just found out about some of the properties that I have inherited. I have an ancestral place that I wish to make as my formal home. This castle has been in the Potter family for centuries but needs some renovations. Now I know that you are working for Hogwarts, but I am willing to give you better wages and more time off, if you would agree to come and work for me?"

Dobby was again in tears, and without warning he bowed very low, and said, "Harry Potter Sir, Dobby is been waiting a long times for this day to come! It would be a great honour for Dobby to serve Great wizard Master Harry Potter and his house sir!"

"Well Dobby, there are not too many Potters to take care off for now, but I plan to change that in the future he," said with a blush.

Dobby just grinned and suddenly grew serious. "Harry Potter Sir, Dobby is wanting to works for you more than anything, but Dobby made a solemn vow to also take care of Winky sir. I can not leaves her now sir!" Poor Dobby slumped his shoulders and looked like the world had just ended for him.

Harry respected the elf's loyalty. He had been expecting this and said, "Dobby, do you think that Winky would like to serve another family?"

Dobby looked like Christmas had just come early and smiled broadly "Harry Potter sir, Winky would be most happiest serving a household than staying at Hogwarts sir!"

"Dobby, could you ask Winky if she would like to serve me? I am also willing to increase her pay if she wants!"

"Oh Harry Potter Sir! Winky does not want any wages and freedom. She wants to be bonded to a wizard household Sir! "

"Well that's O.K with me I suppose. I guess you are going to have to instruct me on what is required to carry out an elf and wizard bond!"

Dobby had his shoulders slumped again and Harry was wondering if he had said anything wrong?

"Dobby what's wrong?" Dobby looked at Harry and said, "Does the Great Harry Potter not wish to bond with Dobby as Well?"

Harry stood there dumbstruck! Finally he gathered his wits and said. "Dobby I would be honoured to bond with you, the only reason I did not ask is because I thought that you wanted to stay free."

"Oh Harry Potter Sir! I is wanting to be free until you is old enough to ask Dobby to be your official bond elf sir!"

"So you don't mind to be bonded to me Dobby?" Harry asked softly

"Oh Sir! It would be Dobby's greatest honour to be bonded with the great wizard Harry Potter sir!"

"You does not have to worry Sir! We is never give away your secrets! We will take very good care of Harry Potter's family. When we is bonded to Sir we will also be considered Potters Sir!"

Harry had never thought that they would also be considered Potters. God he felt like he still had so much to learn about the wizarding laws and customs.

"O.K Dobby, could you go get Winky and come back. I need to let you in on what I am doing and if you don't agree I will understand."

With a POP, Dobby was gone. Harry sat there on his old bed waiting for Dobby. Within a span of 5 minutes Dobby and Winky popped back together.

"See Winky, I is told all along, how great and generous Harry Potter wizard is."

Winky looked at Harry and curtsied "Is Dobby right in saying you is in need of house elves sir?"

Harry could sense her nervousness, and could also sense how desperate she was to get away from Hogwarts.

"Yes Winky I need the services of house elves and I am willing to bond and pay to get you."

Winky looked horrified at the thought of a bonded house elf earning money.

"Oh! Sir, bonding with the great Harry Potter is more than enough rewards Sir."

Harry knew he had a real selling Job with Winky on proper compensation. She would never accept money, but he would manage somehow to get her to wear a proper outfit.

"All right you two, before you agree to bond with me, you need to swear an oath that you will not reveal what I am about to tell you." Both elves swore an oath on their lives to never reveal his secrets.

So Harry began explaining that he was the one destined to bring down Voldemort. He told them about a prophecy, and how no one had helped him train for his fight. He told them how he had taken charge of his own life and that he was training in both light and dark magic. He told them that he would never use any dark magic on anyone but on evil wizards who deserved to die for hurting innocent people.

Harry told them about the Potter castle, and what he was trying to do with the castle. He told them of his ideas for renovating the place and how they would be kept very, very busy in upgrading the castle and building his trunks.

At the mention of all the work that had to be done, Winky nearly went into joyful convulsions. Dobby was jumping up and down again. He told Winky that even though she had no use for money, if she worked for Harry, she would have to wear some clothes. Winky seemed happy about that. Harry also mentioned that no butter beers would be tolerated. Winky agreed to stay off butter beer.

After telling them of his plans he asked them again if they would still be willing to work to him. Both elves nodded very enthusiastically and swore that they wish to bond to Harry.

Harry was then forced to admit that he did not know what was involved in bonding house elves to their masters. Dobby explained the ritual and the benefits of the bonding.

Apparently, a bonded elf's magic could either increase dramatically or be reduced depending on the magical strength of the wizard. Where a powerful wizard was concerned, elf longevity and magical strength would be considerably enhanced. Naturally this ritual involved blood magic. Harry was becoming quite familiar with the rituals.

With that in mind he listened to the incantation and the mixing of the blood. Harry took out one of his regular daggers and slit his palm. The elf did the same and they held hands while chanting an ancient elfish spell.

Once the incantation was complete, he felt warmth and a bright green light surround his body. The elves seemed to be experiencing something very dramatic. They were glowing white. It lasted about a minute. Harry felt different. He could feel his connection to the elf.

When it was done Dobby and Winky looked at Harry with awe in their eyes. Harry asked if they were all right. They told Harry that they felt great and that their magical powers had been enhanced considerably. Winky looked so calm and peaceful. Harry had never seen her so happy.

Harry gave them a piece of paper and told them to read it, memorize it and then burn it. He explained that his family castle was under a modified Fidelius charm. They both did as they were told and now knew where to go. Finally Harry told them to clear out their affairs with Hogwarts and to tell Dumbledore that they had found a family to work for.

"If he asks which family, tell him that under your new obligations, you cannot divulge that information and then leave. Don't wait around for him to engage you in any conversation. He will probably try to use Legilimency on you."

"When you are done with Dumbledore I want you to apparate to the main castle area." He told them that he left an instruction manual to get them started and he would be back later that evening to expand on what he wanted them to do.

He checked his watch and noticed that it was 2:45 pm. He needed to get to Gringotts and set up an open account for Dobby and Winky. They would need lots of money to carry out his castle renovations.

He made sure to put his cloak on and asked Anubis if he was alright.

_**sss **__Yes master, this is most interesting place. The air tastes old here?__** sss**_

_**sss**__ This is a very old castle my friend. __**sss**_

With that he put on his cloak and apparated to Gringotts designated apparition point. Harry really enjoyed his new mode of transportation. It was one hell of a time saver. His new mode of apparition really gave him a deep sense of security. With that said he was off to the traces.

Within seconds he was facing Gringotts. He walked in and waited his turn to see a clerk. After 15 minutes he managed to see Griphook.

"Hello Griphook"

"Ah, Mr. Potter, I'm glad you are here. I have something for you but first what can I do for you?"

"I need to set up and expanse account for my elves!"

"No problem sir" 30 minutes later the account was created. 1,000,000 galleons were initially deposited into the account. A further monthly investment payment of 5,000 per month would be deposited. When they were done, Griphook handed him a list.

Harry scanned the list and noticed that they were his future tutors. He told Griphook that he would pay them each 70,000 galleons for their services. Knowledge has its price. Harry did not begrudge them this money. He felt that they were the best in their fields for a reason.

Harry would be meeting the following people on July 20. He handed Griphook his specialized portkey rings. They were based on his special portkey technology. They would be able get through his wards and arrive at his designated portkey room. Harry read his list and was very happy with Griphook's effort.

**Tutor List**

_**Akima Nakamura**_ - Zen Master. Samurai sword expert and master martial artist in the fields of MuayThai, Jeet Kune Do. Expert in Body Magic.

_**Hinrich Schäfer**_ – Potions Master. Governors Medal on creative healing potions.

_**Yadislav Klunichov**_ – Charms Expert. Academic Medal of Excellence in Ancient Charms and Runes.

_**Michael O'Toole**_ – Transfiguration Expert. Order of Merlin 2nd class for Inventive Transfiguration.

_**Tiberius Nantius**_ – Dulling expert. Winner of 5 consecutive International Wizard Duelling Championships.

Well, Harry thought, these were the key ones. He decided to start with his Martial Arts training, Potions and duelling. These were his weakest points at any rate except for duelling. Harry asked Griphook when they were available and he said that they could be contacted at anytime through Griphook. All he had to do was tell Griphook when he wanted them.

"Griphook this is fantastic work. I decided to start with Martial Arts, duelling and Potions. Have them show up for July 20th."

"No Problems Sir." Harry thanked Griphook for his outstanding work and left Gringotts. His next destination was _Knights and Squires. _He made sure to put on his disguise. When he got there he asked to see mister Greengrass.

"Ah, it's nice to see you again sir. I take it you have the merchandise, yes?"

"Sure do" Harry pulled out his trunk and expanded it. He levitated the rolled up skin put it on the floor.

"Now, when do you think you will have the two robes and the wand holsters finished?"

"By July 31 Sir, I'll have to battle robes ready for you! Are there any motifs you want on the robes?"

Harry thought about it for a minute and then took off his shirt.

"Can you make a copy of this scorpion and make it so that there are two of them facing each other in the back of the robe?"

The man examined the scorpion and was very impressed by the level of details. He made a duplicate on a special parchment and told him it would be no problem.

Harry was pleased and told him he would be back on the morning of July 31.

Harry then decided to go back to the muggle bookstore. He wanted to better understand the theory and use of muggle weapons and apply them to the magic world. Everybody new about guns and such but he was looking for something more refined.

Harry had yet to read his books on the art of war and battle strategy. He planned on rectifying this shortcoming when he got back. With this thought in mind, he apparated to behind Chapters bookstore. He ended up buying several books on muggle weapons technology. He looked at his watch and noticed it was now 4:30 pm. He decided to apparate back to the castle and get himself settled. When he got back Dobby and Winky were already there going over his instructions.

Harry gave them the grand tour and told them that this was now their new home. They were both so ecstatic. He started with the grounds and worked his way to every little room in the castle. He explained in every detail what he wanted in his renovations. He gave them the complete list of suppliers he had already dealt with and explained how to make muggle orders. He told them of the pre-determined drop off points and where to get the merchandise.

He decided to use a storage rental agency. He rented a full container bay and told the attendants that he would be receiving lot of merchandise deliveries from various stores. He gave them his list of pre-approved merchants and asked him to give them access to his storage area.

Harry then showed them their rooms. As predicted they both thought that they were not worthy of such treatment. He assured them that they were his friends and that they deserved to be treated with respect.

Harry showed them the wardroom and explained all of the different wards that he had installed. He told them that he would be seeding golems as a last step into the castle defences. He made sure that they were both tied to the blood wards and finally showed them the kitchen.

Harry made them aware that while he was in training he would be living in his trunk. He told them that they had his full permission to use all of their magical know how and defend the castle if they were ever attacked.

By the time he was finished it was nearly 8:00 pm. Harry was extremely hungry. He went back to his trunk and got himself a nice Halibut and spinach salad plate. When he was done he made himself a new training list and activated Odin's Eye.

_**July 18-20 Odin's Months**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs… 30 min of Tai Chi_

_7:00-7:15 am showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 8:15 Meditation/Occlumency and Legilimency training Practice_

_8:15-11:30 Ancient Dark Arts Theory_

_11:30- 12:00 lunch_

_12:00- 4:30 pm Practice Dark Arts Theory_

_4:30- 6:00 Study Muggle Art of War_

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-9:00 Study Muggle Art of War_

_9:00-11:00 Physical Training_

_Bed_

**12 weeks later Odin Time**

Harry came out of flux time with some of the most self-inflicted pain that anyone could go through. He had made leaps and bounds in his dark arts knowledge. He was now proficient in casting some of the most gruesome spells he had ever encountered in his readings. He had now identified his favourite spells. He could now conjure real 20-foot scorpions with the following spell **zi-pà -ñír-tab. **

Their poison was lethal. Upon the casters' will the scorpions could also impregnate their victims with a magical pod. Using another spell, the pod would activate and suck the magical life force from its victim. A foot long scorpion would burst out of the chest cavity to grow into a giant scorpion. The spell **Buru-Su-Neb **would activate the pods as long as the caster was within visual range of the victims.

Harry was now able to cast what he referred to as a dark patronus. It was no great surprise to him that its form was that of a 15-foot scorpion. The spell **Dira-Gudim **projected the casters worst thoughts and memories onto a recipient. The recipient would feel a sense of deep fear and hopelessness. It was said to cast the victim into a catatonic state. Some victims would fall into hopeless depression.

His favourite spell was **šukur-ùr-ki-a-nañ **the spear of death. This was the impaling spear. A barbed obsidian spear would shoot up the victim's rectum and push through the organs and come out of the neck or mouth. The spear would cause the body to be hoisted 20 feet into the air. It was a slow and painful death according to his scroll.

His most prized terror spell was **Ñír-pa-šag-líl.** This spell would cause the victims arms to go perpendicular to the body and cause a vivisection of the chest and gut area. The skin would peel back towards the arms causing the intestines to spill out of the gut cavity and expose the lung area. The peeled back skin would cause the victim to look like it had bat wings.

Harry thought that if he combined it with his impaling spell he could cause some serious psychological trauma to his enemies. He remembered reading a book about Vlad the Impaler in the 14th century. His methods albeit gruesome, scared the shit out of his enemies.

Harry also found a spell that could conjure a powerful desert storm. This was very useful to overload wards and such. The spell was **Ki-Ud-Gir-Zakal**, also known as the desert fury. This was no ordinary sand storm. The storm itself would launch powerful hot winds that would leach moisture from the enemy's body. If caught too long in the storm they would be turned into mummies.

Conjuring dark creatures had been much more difficult but he finally found some success. Harry could also conjure carnivorous desert scarabs **Ki-Ud-diþ**. These little critters could be very disturbing. He could also call forth a Nephelim. They looked like 12 foot Neanderthals with pointy ears and clawed hands. According to the scrolls they were resistant to most magic.

They were the muggle equivalent of a battle tank. When they caught their enemies they apparently drained their victims' life force and then ripped their bodies in half. According to his scrolls they fed on the spleen of their victims. Quite nasty little fuckers, he thought. They would be ideal against Trolls. They could also be banished fairly quickly.

Harry was very glad that he was learning this kind of magic, but at the same time he was very guarded. He did not enjoy causing people pain. It was not in his nature. He always strived to help people. He knew that he would have to psyche himself into using these spells. He was not Voldemort. That being said, when it came time to deal with his enemies he would be utterly ruthless. He had to fight these monsters with equal venom. He understood this. It may cost him psychologically but he would do it nonetheless.

Harry reflected on the utter stupidity of war. The waste of human life and material was appalling. He had taken the time to read many of his war books. What he got out of these books is that to win a war you had to become war. You had to take the initiative and stake the high ground.

The book of Sun-Tzu had been a fascinating read. He had devoured and memorized the whole book.

Chapter One: Calculations

Chapter Two: Doing Battle

Chapter Three: Planning Attacks

Chapter Four: Formation

Chapter Five: Force

Chapter Six: Weakness and Strength

Chapter Seven: Armed Struggle

Chapter Eight: Nine Changes

Chapter Nine: Army Maneuvers

Chapter Nine: Army Maneuvers (Continued)

Chapter Ten: Ground Formation

Chapter Eleven: Nine Grounds

Chapter Eleven: Nine Grounds (Continued)

Chapter Twelve: Fire Attacks

Chapter Thirteen: Using Spies

From Sun-Tzu Harry learned the principles or organized and guerrilla warfare. He learned the key to waging a war campaign. He learned all about the psychology of warfare. Warfare had to be fought economically, politically and psychologically. He absorbed a vast array of battle tactics and manoeuvres. He now understood the importance of proper administration, logistics and training.

Harry read other books on muggle warfare. He studied the military tactics of Hannibal! He read about the slaughter of 80,000 Roman soldiers at the battle of Cannae, in 217 B.C. He also studied the battles of Ilipa and Zama. Harry had proclaimed Hannibal his favourite military commander. From Hannibal he learned about creative warfare. To this day muggle militaries use his manoeuvres. Harry had developed a whole new level of respect for muggle know how in the application of warfare.

They were far more competent in warfare than wizard kind. He had no doubt that if push came to shove, wizard kind would be utterly crushed by a muggle army regardless of their magic. They knew how to fight as a unit. While studying these books he came up with some interesting ideas. He found a muggle weapon called a Fuel Air Bomb. They were immensely powerful and a wizard should be able to emulate them. Trying to conjure complex ordinance was hopelessly impossible due to their intricate parts and pieces. Harry had gone on the Internet and pulled up the following reference:

_This cloud is then ignited and the subsequent fireball sears the surrounding area while consuming the oxygen in this area. The lack of oxygen creates an enormous overpressure. This overpressure, or blast wave, is the primary casualty-producing force. In several dozen microseconds, the pressure at the centre of the explosion can reach 30 kilograms per square centimetres (427 pounds per square inch) – normal atmospheric pressure at sea level is 14.7 pounds per square inch - with a temperature between 2,500-3,000 degrees Centigrade 4,532-5,432 degrees Fahrenheit. This is 1.5 to 2 times greater than the overpressure caused by conventional explosives. Personnel under the cloud are literally crushed to death. Outside the cloud area, the blast wave travels at some 3,000 meters per second 9843 feet per second. The resultant vacuum pulls in loose objects to fill the void. As a result, a fuel-air explosive can have the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon without residual radiation._

Harry had practiced conjuring a propane fog some 200 meters out to sea and detonating it with an incendio spell. He practiced with different chemical mixtures but always came back to simple hydrocarbons since they were much easier to conjure. It had taken many tries to get the right fog consistency and density but now he could easily do it. He used and incendio spell to detonate the cloud.

The results had been spectacular to say the least. His biggest fog cloud so far had been about 1000 feet in diameter. He was forced to stop towards the end because he noticed muggle warship coming to scout the coast. It was probably because of the continuous explosions going off at sea. Harry had to admit this simple muggle invention was going to be one of his most powerful weapons in his arsenal. Even a kilometer out to sea he could feel the air blast.

Harry had taken time to study even more muggle physics and came up with another idea borrowed from muggle scientist. This adaptation involved conjuring a ball of compressed plasma. The original fire elemental spell was limited to a moderate temperature range.

From his physics books, he remembered reading how muggle scientists were experimenting with the 4th state of matter, which they called plasma. They used plasma in their fusion research. They needed very intense heat sources to fuse deuterium atoms. By conjuring a plasma ball he was able to achieve insanely higher temperatures over the old fireball spells.

After many intense practice sessions he was able to duplicate the energy signature of a muggle microwave. The microwave then heated an enclosed air bubble. It was simply raw magical energy tuned to emulate a powerful microwave beam.

Harry was able to create a 3-foot diameter bubble and heat the air within the bubble. He found that his bubble would degrade very quickly after a distance of about 500 feet. The bubble contained an ionized gas that consisted mainly of electrons that were stripped from neutral nitrogen and oxygen atoms.

He had been able to attain a temperature of 300,000 Kelvin. Any target hit within that radius was instantly incinerated. The only downfall was the intense concentration that he needed to keep the bubble intact. It was also incredibly draining. The smaller the bubble the faster he could recast the spell.

Harry also practiced some wandless magic. According to most books, it took a very long time to cast even 1st years spells using this type of magic. That being said Harry felt that it could be another critical advantage in a battle, so he decided to pursue this as well.

Harry decided to take some time and go see how Dobby and Winky were doing. He was very impressed with their progress so far. They had completed the first floors and the dungeon. The main reception area along with the kitchens and dining room were coming along nicely. He figured that at this rate they would have the castle fully renovated toward the end of July. It was slow and meticulous work. The elves seemed to relish this thought. He had never seen Winky so happy. Dobby just kept bouncing up and down.

Harry had given them some suggestions and told them not to worry about the money. He looked at his watch and realized that he had to meet his Tutors. Basically he was going to make them a deal. He would tell them about the time flux but not how it was done. After all their biological clock was going to age faster than normal, so he wanted them to have the facts. He needed them to agree to his 30-day training schedule. He went to the portkey area of his trunk manor and brought himself a good book and waited for their arrival. He didn't wait too long.

A Japanese man appeared with two full bags and which he assumed were weapons. He had long dark hair braided at the back. His eyes were as black as coals. He was quite muscular and had a face that was highly angular and seemed to carry a sense of power. He was obviously a wizard. He carried a Katana on his back. In short you didn't want to piss this guy off. Harry went over and introduced himself. He made a 45-degree bow and when he came back up Harry said.

"Master Akima! It is an honor to have you in my home!"

Akima looked had his young charge and seemed very pleased with what he saw. He was in obvious shape, not like most wizards. He had also taken the time study customs. He noticed the raw power that he was emanating. He had long black raven hair tied in the back. He had the most brilliant emerald green eyes that he had ever seen. Akima finally found his tongue.

"I am honored to be here. This was an opportunity that I could not pass up. Your generosity does you credit"

"As a master of your art, you deserve the compensation that you are due"

They started talking and Harry gave him a brief explanation of his objectives and how far he wanted to take his training. Harry could tell that this man had a wealth of knowledge in martial arts.

About 30 minutes later another two more portkey activated. His new potions and duelling masters had arrived. Harry introduced himself and Akima. The chatted for a while and Harry gave them a grand tour of his manor. He showed Akima his dojo and the metal smelting workbench. He told Akima that he wanted to make his own Katana. Akima seemed eager to make himself a new weapon. Harry found out that he was a swords maker. He then showed Hinrich his potions lab and his professional master potions cabinet. They then made their way to the duelling chamber to make sure that it met Tiberius specification.

Hinrich asked him if he was genuinely interested in potions. Harry told him that he liked the science itself but that his potions teacher Severus Snape made it impossible for him to enjoy the subject. He then told him about his treatment at the hands of Snape. Apparently Hinrich knew of Snape and detested the man with a passion. He then showed them their rooms, the library, the kitchens and recreation facility. He made sure that they agreed to his training schedule and all of them seemed to have no problem with this.

The last thing he did was do come up with a training schedule.

_**July 20-30 Odin's Months**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs…est._

_7:00-7:15 showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 8:15 Meditation/Occlumency and Legilimency training Practice_

_8:15-9:30 Ancient Dark Arts _

_9:30- 12:00 Potions Theory (Review potions Year 1-7)_

_12:00-12:30 Lunch_

_12:30- 3:30 pm Martial Arts Training_

_4:30- 6:00 Duelling Theory and Practice._

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-9:00 Sword Theory and Training_

_9:00-11:00 Study Period (Potions, Duelling, Dark Arts, whatever... etc)_

_11:00-11:20 pm Occlumency and Legilimency_

_11:30 Bed_

Well this was going to be his schedule for the next 10 months. By the time they were settled in, Harry had made sure that the financial transaction had been carried out. This seemed to please all men immensely. They now knew that Harry was serious and had told them so. He basically asked him to put him through the ringer. He would not be disappointed.

**Meanwhile in Little Hangleton at Riddle Manor**

_Down in the dungeons, sitting on his throne with Nagini at his side was the Dark Lord himself. He was deep in thought. After the little fiasco at the department of mysteries, Voldemort had felt the need to reassess his priorities and his overall objectives. He first needed to get his followers back. As incompetent as they seemed to be! He needed bodies to carry out his plans. He also needed to go on a recruiting drive. He felt sure that had Dumbledore not interfered, the thorn in his side could have been eliminated. _

_That night had nonetheless been quite useful. He had been able to recover nearly 60 percent of his knowledge. Last January he had finally figured out what he had given the brat on that fateful night 16 years ago. By possessing Potter mind he recognized a small bit of his own magical signature. He was able to access it and retrieve some of his knowledge before the pain became too great. He had been able to make contact with the brat since then, but was not able to access his mind!_

_For some reason this worried him. His only explanation for this was that Potter had found a way to build back his natural barriers or somehow became a proficient Occlumens! He seriously doubted that was the case. Snape had assured him that Potter possessed no talent for the mind arts. _

_He needed Snape to re-establish his Occlumency lessons with the boy. If this failed then a much more direct approach would be needed. He had proven that direct possession albeit supremely painful for the both of them also allowed the greatest amount of memory transfer. It was imperative that he complete his knowledge transfer. He had spent far too many years gathering this knowledge. If this failed then he would find a way to bring the boy there where he could retrieve it one fail swoop before the boy's torturous death. He had to pay for his 13 years spent in exile. _

_He had to take his time and plan properly. How many times has the blasted brat ruined his plans? Far too many, he thought. _

_His first priority however involved breaking into Azkaban. If successful he would have his inner circle back plus any followers he could pick from the inmate population. He also needed to plan some attacks outside of Britain. He had to throw off the ministry dogs. Make them think he was overseas._

He bellowed "Wormtail! You dimwitted worm, get over here!"

_A shuffle through the hall could be heard, and in came the pathetic traitor, with his balding head and beady eyes. It seemed that he was starting to look more and more like his animagus even in human form. How pathetic. 'Sometimes I wonder why I keep him around.' A little voice in the back of his head told him because of his spying abilities._

"_Youuu… ah… ma… ma- master you called?"_

"_Give me your left arm!" the worm looked about ready to pass out from fright!_

_Wormtail knew what was coming. He would summon his remaining death eaters by pressing on his mark! God, the pain was unreal at times. He hated it when he used him like this! _

_Voldemort pointed his wand at the mark and yelled _modre. _He then_ _watched as Wormtail writhed on the floor. It was always amusing to see the worm wiggle. _

_Within a span of 15 minutes his remaining troops showed up. _

"_Severus"_

"_My Lord"_

"_I have a little job for you! I need you to continue your Occlumency training with Potter, for some reason I am no longer able to break into his mind. I need to reach his mind for my plans to be put into motion! Do not fail me Snape or the consequences will be very unpleasant!"_

_Snape was beginning to get nervous. He knew that with the demise of the mutt, Potter would be in no mood to listen to the headmaster about a summer training regiment. He had to convince Dumbledore that the brat needed his Occlumency lessons. The question is why does the Dark Lord want this connection re-established? What was he missing here, he thought. _

_He was brought back out of his musing when he heard something about Azkaban. So he was finally planning on getting his inner circle back! The plan went on for over half and hour. Apparently he was going to recruit bodies from his Slytherin house. Made sense, he thought, half of their parents were rotting in Azkaban. It seemed that the dark lord trusted nobody. He had not disclosed the attack date? Everything was on a need to know basis._

_When the meeting was over, everyone was treated to a little round of Crucio torture. God the man was insane, he thought. When it was over Snape went back to find the headmaster. _

"_Bella"_

_She prostrated herself before her lord. "Yes my lord?"_

"_I need you to go to the following students and make them swear an oath that they will help free their parents"_

"_Yes my lord, how long do I have?"_

"_You have 6 days. Do not fail me Bella!"_

"_Never will, my lord." _

_He went back to planning for his Azkaban raid. He already had the Dementors on board. Of course the ministry fools didn't know that!_

**Earlier at 12 Grimmauld Place**

_Tonks arrived at head quarters and made her way to the kitchen. Remus was the only one present at the moment. _

"_Hi Tonks."_

"_Oh! Hi Remus, you don't look to good?"_

"_Well full moon is coming, and I'm starting to feel it."_

"_Oh shit I forgot, sorry."_

_She went about and found some scrambled eggs and has browns. She realized that she was starving. She sat at the table and began to attack her breakfast. Remus looked at her and noticed the lines under her eyes. Night shift was pretty hard on some people. _

"_How was your shift?"_

_She looked up at him and wondered wither she should let him know. She wasn't sure herself but her sixth sense told her some thing was wrong at the Dursleys'. She couldn't put her finger on it. She was very observant and noticed that every time she was on shift the same pattern seemed to occur. Was it always Vernon Dursley that she saw? Finally she decided to tell him._

"_Well Remus, It's nothing I can pinpoint, but I'm getting a weird feeling about Harry."_

_Remus sat up immediately and his eyes narrowed._

"_What do you mean?"_

"_Well it's hard to tell with the distance ban, but every time it's my shift, the only person I ever see is his uncle?"_

_Remus pondered this for a moment, and came to a realization of his own._

"_Damn now that you mention it, all I ever see is his Aunt? That almost seems impossible doesn't it?"_

"_I don't know Remus; I'm getting a weird feeling about this?"_

_Remus thought some more about this and decided to broach the subject with the other sentries and see who they saw._

"_I'll talk to Mad Eye this morning and see what he has to say"_

_Just as she was about to answer in came Mad Eye. _

"_What do you want to talk about?" His eye was swirling while he was examining the whole kitchen. 'Probably thought that it had been hexed since supper last night thought Tonks.' At that moment Remus spoke up_

"_Mad Eye, on your shift have you noticed anybody around the Dursleys' house?"_

"_Yah, I see the Potter kid working in the Garden or washing that muggle contraption, they call an aster mobile or some rubbish thing like that. Why do you ask?"_

_Remus went on to explain what Tonks told him and what they both saw on their shifts. He went on to describe that it was really strange that they each saw the same person every time when it was their shift. They could see Moody's eye swirling like crazy and finally came to the conclusion that some thing was up. Remus told him that on his next night shift he was going on a scouting study. Damn the rules. He was going to see Harry. He would have to wait after full moon was over. _

"_All right, I'll go into his relatives' home to see if he is all right. I'll go incognito!"_

_They agreed that it was worth the risk, to find out if anything was wrong._

**July 30**

**40 Weeks Later Odin's Time**

Harry decided to take some time off and go relax in France tomorrow. He had no particular plans, but he just wanted to unwind and enjoy some kick ass French cuisine and maybe get some shopping done. He just finished thanking his duelling and potions tutors for their time. After 10 months of intensive training he no longer needed their help. It had been money well spent.

Harry was now an accomplished dueller. He had learned many strategies and tricks to get him out of thigh situations. He learned how to layer his spells. He could now layer up to 5 spells at any one time. This increased duelling efficiency dramatically. Layering combined with the dark arts was absolutely deadly. In his last month he was able to best his tutor with every bout.

With Hinrich he discovered that he was fairly accomplished in potions. It would always be his least favourite of the magical arts but now it was not such a big mystery anymore. He had closed the gaps in his early knowledge and realized what an utter shit Snape was as a teacher. In his first 4 months he had properly reviewed year 1 to 6. In months 5 and 6 he studied all his Newt's potions. In his last 3 months he worked on special projects. 8 months earlier while working with Akima he had found a roadblock while working on body magic.

Harry realized that he was limited by the amount of channels that he had built up to his muscles. He needed to boost his magical power through out his muscles. Harry needed a way to reach every muscle simultaneously with raw magic. His answer came while he was perusing a muggle biology book. He was reading about haemoglobin and found the following passage.

_Iron is an essential mineral for both carrying oxygen in the blood and using oxygen in cells. A single atom of iron lies at the core of a red blood cell in a ring disk-shaped molecule which is the business end of both. Red blood cells use haemoglobin to ferry oxygen from the lungs to the tissues. _One pint of blood contains about 250 milligrams of iron. _Since the average human has about 10 - 12 pints of blood total, and this accounts for half of the iron in the body, that comes out to between 5 and 6 grams of iron per adult human body._

Harry took this passage and asked Heinrich many questions on blood replenishing potions. He wanted to understand every bit of theory on it. He now understood that on top the growth factors the binding agent that they used was powdered iron in minute quantities. He decided to experiment and try to bind a Naquadah atom to the Iron.

Harry eventually formed an amalgam that was not rejected by the cell division process. After countless nights of experimentation, he found the correct binding agents. Hortail blood and phoenix tears were used to create a stable matrix. Hortail blood caused the Iron and Naquadah atoms to form a proper ionic bond but in the process it generated heat. The phoenix tears protected the haemoglobin cells from destruction during their creation.

He initially experimented with Naquadria but found that the power curve was too much even for phoenix tears. The cell creation never took place. This is what forced him to use Naquadah in its place. He also suspected that the sapphire doping somehow absorbed some of the phoenix tears energy.

Over a month period he had replenished his blood. He made himself give a litre of blood once a week and then took the replenishing potion. He kept his blood in a stasis field. There were lots more blood rituals to go through.

From then on his body magic went to a whole new dimension. Akima had been very surprised at the changes but never inquired how it happened. The Naquadah in his blood allowed his core magic in his limited muscle channels to be amplified over 10 times their original power. Every fibre of his muscles now had ample access to his core magic. His movements were now accelerated at 10 times normal speed. He always had fast reflexes but now he was fighting at a whole new level. It was so strange that he called it the _weirding way_.

He could jump, run, punch and kick at amazing speed and power. His sword work had become supremely deadly. The best part of all this was that since he was amplifying and pushing his magic through every muscle fibre of his body, he was also building channels at an accelerated rate. It was fucking painful, but it seemed that the pain was fading bit by bit. Other parts of his body had also been affected by this change. His eyes now seemed to have a deep emerald green glow to them. If he got angry they seemed to crackle as if green lighting was going off inside his eyes. It was quite scary to say the least.

Eventually he would not need his blood replenishing potion. He also applied the same theories to the Skele Grow potion. His theory was that by binding naquadah to his bones, he hoped to create a skeletal highway that would not only amplify his core magic as it made its way to the PONS but mostly fix the deficiencies that his malnourished Dursley years had bestowed on him.

This had taken a lot more work but he eventually succeeded in this endeavour. He made his major changes in the calcium re-growth factor. He borrowed the same techniques from his blood potion and modified them for the skele-grow potion. He was able to grow Naquadah filaments within the inner bone structure. He also multiplied the nutrient factors by an order of magnitude. As a result his bones would likely be bigger and a lot stronger. Bone splintering hexes would probably not work on him. They would bruise the shit out of him though.

Harry had restructured his bones in favour of the new skele-grow matrix. The nutrient deficiencies had been fixed. His bones were now made up of a quarter Naquadria by weight. He had done this over 30 successive potions. This was done to reduce the level of pain and target all of his bones. Overcoming early years of malnutrition had allowed him to get to his natural intended height of 6 feet 3 inches. His constant weight training had also developed his now broad shoulders and chest. He was not overly bulky but well sculpted all around.

One final gift from Heinrich was his eye potion. This was his life work and the reason he won the Governor Medal. He was waiting for all of the red tape to clear in order to sell his patent to the reputed Apothecary. His potion fixed cornial anomalies. With this potion he would no longer need glasses. The only drawback was the complexity and the time needed to brew the potion. It took a month and a half to complete. He told Heinrich that he would be very grateful to him if he could cure his eyesight.

The curing process had been quite painful and had put him out of commission for 2 days but it had been worth it. He now had perfect 20/20 vision. He told Heinrich that if he was having trouble getting through the red tape to let him know and he would speed it up for him. His contacts at Gringotts had showed them how efficient Goblins were in these matters.

Due to the schedule for his training, he had asked each of his tutors if they would be interested in also teaching each other their arts. They had all agreed in order to help eliminate their boredom. It soon became apparent that they really enjoyed each other's teachings. When they finally parted ways they were quite sad to do so, and promised to keep in touch. Everyone had drastically increased their repertoire of knowledge and they were all very thankful for it. They thanked him for coming up with the idea in the first place.

His biggest changes had been with Akima. He had blossomed in martial arts. After 5 months of sword work, Akima had suggested that they make his sword. He had made his own katana which was exclusively designed to fit his physical attributes. The grip and blade length were all calculated accordingly. He had suggested to Akima that they try working with a new metal. He had introduced him to Rhenium. He had incorporated Rhenium, Naquadria and martensitic carbon steel.

Akima was a traditional man and decided to stick to carbon steels only. He had shown Akima how to tie blood runes to specific spells. He had managed to incorporate a Naquadria core to the Rhenium handle. He had also forged the center of the blade with Naquadria. He had used the same runes on his sword as he did for his wands. He even added a permanent sharpness charm to it. His new weapon could be used as a sword first and a wand at the same time. It was nowhere near as powerful as his wands but the sword would still cast spells at the level of his holly wand.

Well he thought, he had a big day tomorrow so he decided to stop at Gringotts to allow the final payments and at the same time drop at _Knights and Squires_ and see if his battle robes were ready. He was a day early but what the hell.

Harry made his way to Gringotts and went to see Griphook. He saw Griphook behind his desk with a pile of papers. He looked up and noticed the visitor.

"Ah Mr Potter, I am glad you are here I was just about to send you a letter. I have been going over all of your accounts and noticed some payments on the order of 20,000 galleons a month that were never approved by you. I did some digging and found that they had been set up by your previous guardian Dumbledore?"

He went and picked up the ledger and noticed the letters O.P as the beneficiary. At that moment he looked up at Griphook and his eyes were glowing and crackling as if a lighting storm was erupting inside them. The room began to shake and all of the employees started to look in his direction.

Griphook realized that Mr. Potter was beyond angry he was royally pissed. Harry meanwhile was struggling very hard to bring himself under control. The effort was such that beads of perspiration were developing all over his forehead. He finally calmed himself enough for which Griphook was immensely thankful. He sat with Griphook and analyzed the account. They realized that it had been set up since he started attending Hogwarts.

He told Griphook that O.P more than likely stood for Order of the Phoenix. The account had been set without his knowledge or consent. That bastard has been embezzling his money to fund his turkey club. Oh, Dumbledore Harry thought, you are so going to pay.

Harry told Griphook to follow the money trail and find out where it was going. He then told him to call the law office of _Zabini and Stenton._ He told him to get a hold of Michael Stenton and explain the situation to him. He wanted him at the bank when this payment went through. He wanted him to witness the transaction and then close the account permanently after the payment was made.

Harry then wanted him to hold off informing Dumbledore. He told Griphook that he would meet Dumbledore in person on the third week of August for a final confrontation. When they met he would inform him that he had been removed as his guardian in early June and that he was suing him for breach of trust. He told him to get Stenton to file all of the necessary papers for a formal lawsuit.

Because of this breach of trust and the fact that his parents wishes had never been followed. Griphook informed him that under wizard law and the magna carta of 1252 he was now able to claim emancipation. Harry informed him to get all of the paper work ready. He was going to stop by on August 15 and sign the document. He thanked Griphook once again for his incredible work and told him that hiring him was the best decision he ever made. Griphook seemed to blush at the praise.

Harry exited the building and making sure that his disguise was on he made his way to _Knights and Squires._ When he got there he asked to see Mr Greengrass. Just as he thought, all of his robes were finished. He ended up with two battle robes, a pair of combat boots, two wand holsters and a vest all made of Basilisk. The man proclaimed it to be his finest creations. Apparently the robes and vest were double lined with Basilisk skin inside and outside. They apparently would stop a great many curses. The scorpion emblems were on all robes and vest. Harry had to admit that the emblems were quite striking.

When he was done he apparated back to the castle to meet with his favourite Elves and see how the renovations were going. Outside of some finishing touches, the castle was now fully renovated. He had to admit that his permanent home looked very impressive. This castle was now fit for his title. He praised the elves and told them that they had done a superb job. They had imitated his trunk manor very closely. He decided to add the last defence to the castle grounds.

He found 30 walnut size black diamonds from his gem collection and fully charged them with his raw magic. He then tied the black diamonds to the blood ward and cast the giant scorpion spell on them. They would be his golems. If the blood ward were ever breached they would sprout from the ground and attack anything not tied to the blood ward.

When he was done with his lunch he decided that his elves' next project would be to renovate and upgrade the castle grounds. He made several sketches of what he was looking for. He wanted deep gardens and upgrade the ponds in the back and flower beds, fountains and weeping willows in the front. He met with them later that afternoon and gave them their marching order. With all of the work involved he thought that Winky was going to have an orgasmic attack.

She had a smile that was quite contagious. He had noticed such a big change in her. She seemed very happy and content. Harry was very glad for that. She and Dobby certainly worked like a well oiled machine. Dobby as usual was bouncing everywhere and generally acting goofy.

When he was done with his elf's he decided to set his golems. After two hours of exhausting work he had planted all of his golems. He decided that the entrance to the castle was lacking and decided conjure two 6-foot scorpion statues facing each other and set above the castle doors. He then etched the Orion constellation into the granite between the scorpion stingers. He wanted to honour Sirius and so set his star to help the scorpions guard the Potter estate. By then it was getting quite late and decided to call it quits and go to bed. He had to be well rested for his vacation day.

**July 31 **

Harry woke up early to get ready for his trip. He showered, ate breakfast and got dressed. He decided on black Armani trousers with Basilisk boots. He chose a short sleeve emerald green satin shirt with black border to go over his Basilisk vest. Even though he was going on some relaxation he was not going to relax on his protection. He put an illusion charm on his boots to make them look like black Doc Martins. He then picked a black diamond scorpion ear ring for his right ear.

He particularly liked these. He had fully charged them and put several charms on them. One charm was the voice amplification charm. He favourite one was the anti-obliviate charm. He had found this charm in his Norsman Dark Arts book. Apparently as an accomplished Occlumens he did not have to worry about the Obliviate spell, but why take a chance. The added protection made him feel better. He also added an anti summoning charm and a shield against blinding spells. He also made sure that Anubis was well fed and told him that he would be back within two days. Anubis decided to stay at the castle. He really enjoyed his sand box. Harry dropped a rat and wished him good hunting.

With his personal self taken care of he pulled out his map of France and decided to go and visit their magical quarters. He made sure to reduce his trunk manor and locked it in his vest pocket. He put his katana in its sheath and stowed it on his back. He added a disillusion charm to it and then memorized the map co-ordinates. Without a sound he vanished from England to France.

He apparated to the designated point and moved off to the entrance to the French magical quarters. He noticed that shops and businesses seemed a lot more relaxed here. Probably not having Voldemort breathing down your neck helped. He walked around for a bit and decided to try one of the pastry and coffee shops. He didn't bother casting a disillusion charm on himself. No one knew him here and it was highly unlikely that any members of the bird club were here.

Harry ordered a cappuccino and some buttered croissant. He just took his time and examined all of the witches and wizards in their myriad robes and hats. You could feel the magic in the air. He felt at peace.

When he was done he paid and started looking at all of the shops. He decided to go to a book shop and see what was available. There were a large selection of French books that he did not understand but there were also ancient Roman and Greek tomes. He decided to buy a couple of them. He then took the rest of the morning to examine the different shops. It seemed that the French muggle fashion was easily emulated in its magic quarters. He was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Everywhere he went it seemed that women were eying him up as if he were prime rib.

He looked at his watch and noticed that it was close to 11:30 am. He entered this shop called _Vivaldi_ and spotted the man's section. He spotted several silver silk shirts that were quite to his liking. As he was approaching the shirts he felt a particularly strong magical aura. He tried to pinpoint where it was coming from. He started walking around the store to get a better feel of the aura.

At the same time Xiana Zabini was looking at female pants. She was walking towards the blouse section when she felt a powerful magical presence. She was very sensitive to magical auras. Where most people emitted at a light bulb level this one was like a search lamp. She started looking around to see if she could pinpoint the source.

At that moment Harry was sure he was looking at the powerful witch. Harry was breathless. She was gorgeous. She was tall and must have been 5'-10" or 5'-11".She had dark silky black hair with the deepest sapphire blue eyes that he had ever seen. She possessed a fine aquiline nose and eyebrows. She had a finely sculpted square jaw with full lips. Her cheek bones were perfectly proportioned. He then looked down at her body and noticed that she had perky round breast with perfect hip curves. She also possessed long beautiful tanned legs. He noticed that she was wearing a deep green knee length skirt and a cotton white blouse. If there was such a thing as love at first site then Harry had been struck.

Xiana had honed in on the powerful aura. She found herself looking at the most striking specimen of manhood she had ever seen. He had long dark raven hair that went down to his shoulder blades. His hair was tied into a thick ponytail. He had what looked like a scorpion ear ring attached to his right ear. His face was perfectly sculpted with fine aquiline features. He had a full set of lips and his eyes were by far the most striking of his features. She was looking at two pools of the deepest emerald green eyes that she had ever seen. They were slightly glowing. She was mesmerized by his eyes.

She managed to look down at his body and noticed that he was quite tall. He was over 6-feet and was well muscled. His body was finely sculpted and held power. She could hear her heart hammering in her ribcage. She finally managed to shake her stupor and finally managed to speak a sentence.

"Hello! Do I know you?"

Harry was suddenly shaken from his dreaming and managed to register that she was speaking to him. He caught her question just in time.

"Errr, No I'm sorry, we have never met. Although I wish that we had!"

What in the world made him say that? By now he was sporting a bit of a blush.

Xiana also blushed but managed to ask another question.

"Are you from around here?"

"Errr, no I'm actually from England!"

This caught her interest.

"That's interesting, because I am from England also. I have been living in France for the last 7 years. I attended Beauxbatons academy. By the way my name is Xiana Zabini"

Harry registered her last name and wondered if she was related to Blaise Zabini from Slytherin house. He definitely wanted to know a lot more about her and was debating whether to give her his real name. He was saved the choice because at that moment he heard a familiar voice.

"Xiana where 'ave you been yes, I 'ave been looking evywhere for you" yelled Fleur.

Harry turned around to get a look at Fleur. She was staring at him with her mouth slightly open and suddenly launched herself at him and yelled.

"Aaarrrrryyyy! Vat are you doing in France no"

"Eeerr decided to get away for some relaxation. I have never been here before and so here I am."

They both heard someone clear her throat. Fleur looked at Xiana and realized that some introductions were in order.

"Xiana, I'm sorry. Vere are my manners yes. This is my good friend Arry Potter. Arry this is my best friend from Beauxbatons Xiana Zabini."

At hearing his lat name Xiana lifted an eye brow and gave him a smile. She wasn't the type to oh and ah. At any rate she got the distinct feeling that this man prized his privacy above all else and from what she remembered in the papers he did not particularly like the attention. She would never admit this of course but she was quite impressed by him. He seemed shy and down to earth. She had always listened to her gut, and it was giving her good vibes.

"Well if you are Harry Potter then the papers certainly don't do you justice. Of course I am not one to listen to that pile of manure" she said all of this with a slight smile.

Well Harry thought, his opinion of her went up another notch. For one thing she didn't seem to be all that impressed that he was Harry Potter. Last thing he wants is for her to just see him as the boy who lived.

"Yes I also find very little worth in most news outlets. The Quibbler surprisingly has been the most reputable to date" He also said this with a slight smile.

Fleur notices the interaction between the two and bit her lower lip. She recognized the signs of attraction when she saw them and these two were like magnets. 'Well, she thought, let's see if I can work my magic.' Xiana has been so sad this past year. Her twin's death really hit her hard. She still has not forgiven her family for their treatment of her brother.

Of course, Fleur thought, she could not believe the changes in Arry. He was going into his 6th year at Ogwarts but he looked like a fully grown adult. She noticed the power emanating off of him. She had to admit that she was a little intimidated. He did not have his boyish looks anymore. His eyes seemed much more calculating and aloof. If she was not going out with Bill she might have made a play for him. She could not help her Veela blood. Gabrielle will be so happy to see him.

"Xiana, why don't we take Arry to _Le Sanglier_ just outside the magic quarter?"

"Sure, I'm hungry and by the look on Harry's face I'd say he is ready for some food."

"Well it's one of the reasons I came to France, good food and beautiful women" he said with a cheeky grin.

Both girls laughed and they all made their way to out of the quarters. On their way they met up with Gabrielle and she definitely still had her hero worship. When she saw him she lunched herself into his arms and gave him a big hug and kissed his cheeks much to his dismay, both women were laughing their heads off.

"Oh, Arry it's has been so very long since we last saw each ozer yes"

"Yes it sure has."

Xiana looked at Fleur for some clarification and she told him what Harry did on their second Triwizard tournament task. Xiana raised both her eyebrows and then looked at Harry with one of her smiles.

"Well, well, polite, generous, and brave!"

"Well they make it out to be a lot more than it was really."

Harry was starting to blush at the praise. She looked at him and started laughing again. Harry was getting annoyed at this point. So he started changing the subject and asked her all sorts of questions about their time at Beauxbatons. They finally reached _Le Sanglier_ and decided to eat on the terrace. It was such a beautiful day that it would be a waste to stay inside. They sat and ordered some wine. He let the girls order; he was not a connoisseur on wines at any rate.

Harry finally got the courage to ask Xiana if she knew a Blaise Zabini. She told him that he was her younger brother. He then asked her why her magical studies were done at Beauxbatons and not Hogwarts. She told him that her parent did not want to have all of their eggs in one basket. With the volatility of the wizarding world being what it is, they felt that there was a better of chance of their offsprings' survival if they were split into different schools. She said that it was cold logic but that she understood their reasoning. They talked about what they wanted to do for careers.

She also asked him questions about his childhood and such. He was vague about some of his answers but she could see the pain in his eyes. This man had suffered in his short life. She did not push on subjects he was not very comfortable talking about. Gabrielle spotted one of her friends across the street and said she would be right back. Suddenly Fleur stood up and yelled.

"Bill, we are ozer here"

Oh shit, Harry thought. He had completely forgotten that Fleur was dating Bill. To make matters worse he had completely forgotten to make his Dursley appearance this morning. He wasn't too worried about that one but Bill was a different story altogether. God damn it, he was sick and tired of hiding his every movement. If he had to come out in the open now, so be it. There was no way they could catch me anyway. I'm through hiding, he though. This would be a perfect time to use his legilimens abilities and see where Bill's loyalties really were.

Bill sauntered over and yelled "Hey Fleur!" she ran to him and jumped in his arms.

Harry stood up and turned around. At that moment Bill pulled away from Fleur and looked Harry directly in the eyes. To say that Bill was shocked beyond words was an understatement. His mouth was doing a good imitation of a fish out of water. Finally he found his voice yelled

"Harry, what the fuck are you doing over here?" Harry was about to reply but suddenly all hell broke loose. Harry heard a multitude of pop going off everywhere. He immediately recognized the black cloaks and the white masks. '**F****uck!**' he thought.

Before the rest of them had even reacted Harry had overthrown the dining table and told everyone else on the terrace to do the same. They didn't have to be told twice. Harry then called to Bill and Fleur.

"**GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE OPEN, AND GET YOUR ASSES BACK HERE"**

They didn't have to be told twice. They ran and jumped over the small stone wall and came crashing behind the tables.

"They are going for the muggles" Harry said. He flicked his wrist and his wand instantly slapped into his hand.

"Bill cover the right flank, Fleur you cover center and Xiana cover the left flank. Don't be afraid to hurt these bastards either"

"What are you going to do?"

Harry turned around and looked at them. The sight that met them was unlike anything they had ever seen. His eyes were pulsing with a deep emerald light and there seemed to be a thunderstorm going off inside them. His body was glowing with a white magical aura and he simply said.

"**I'm going to slaughter me some Death Eaters!"** Bill didn't know what to do. This Harry was nothing like the one he remembered. They were all brought out of their shock when they heard a slew of Avada Kadavra flying at muggles and Gabrielle. Fleur screamed for her sister to get down but she was utterly petrified with fear. The damn curse was flying fast towards her and Harry took instant action.

_**Accio **_**Gabrielle**. He put max power into his new wand and she flew out of the way like a bullet. The killing curse missed her by a hands breath. He pulled her back and gave her to Fleur. Some little girl's mother was not so lucky. The little girl had to be no older than 4. Her mother fell on top of her. A death eater was approaching her with intent to kill. He never made it. Upon hearing the little girl's crying for her mother, Harry went into a berserker rage.

With pure malice on his face, Harry uttered his next spell _**bi-iz-neturu. **_Bill heard the spell but it sounded like a bunch of hissing. The next thing they saw was a green light surrounded by a black sheath hit a death eater. Suddenly he began screaming and he literally started to melt. First his skin went leaving all of his muscle fibres exposed. Then his flesh melted off of his bones and liquefied. Finally his bones just turned to ash. What was left was just a puddle of protoplasm.

Many death eaters turned around to see who was screaming like this, they were so shocked that they failed to make a move against Harry. That would be their last breath on earth. Harry took the initiative and cast his wand at max power over a group of 8 death eaters. He layered the following spells **šukur-ùr-ki-a-nañ **and **Ñír-pa-šag-líl**.

This time they all heard Harry carry on with a bunch of hissing. When they looked up to see what damage the spells did their eyes went as big as plates and they all lost their lunch. Xiana launched a cutting hex at one of the death eater but got distracted with what Harry was doing and she took a bludgeoning hex to her left arm and she fell screaming. He left fore arm was busted.

Suddenly Obsidian barbed spears shot up through the death eater's rectums and came out of their mouths and necks. They were lifted some 20 feet in the air where they were all vivisected. Their arms came perpendicular to their bodies and their abdominal skin peeled off their bodies and attached itself to the underside of their arms. Blood and intestines came spilling below them. The scream could be heard kilometres away no doubt. They now looked like some kind of skewed bats hanging there with their insides showing.

By this time all of the death eaters had stopped their carnage to look at the man who had done this. What they saw caused some of them to shit their pants. Again their shocks gave Harry time to go on the offensive he quickly holstered his wand and took out his katana. He then apparated to the nearest group of death eaters and in these close quarters their wands became useless.

By the time they had realized what was happening he had decapitated three of them and cut two more in half. This time some of them had recovered enough to send some AK and severing charms. He ducked just in time to avoid three simultaneous AK but was grazed by a cutting charm. God damn it he had to figure out a way to neutralize that fucking AK spell.

His left thigh began bleeding. This seemed to piss him off even more and he took out his wand in a large circle and finished with a stab while uttering **zi-pà -ñír-tab**. Suddenly 10 20-foot scorpions sprang out of the ground and began dissecting any death eaters that came by. Death eaters were trying to kill them with Avada Kadavra but it was useless. They were using the wrong spells at any rate. 10 death eaters were stung.

He allowed his scorpions to impregnate 3 death eaters. The rest suffered the same fate as if his snake Anubis had bitten them. They all dried up as if they were mummified. He then banished his scorpions. He stunned the 3 impregnated DE and went after the last three.

While they were occupied dodging his scorpions he cast the following spell **Retroago-Figere-Scipio** at two DE. This very obscure spell renders a wand unable to focus a spell. The wand accumulates the spells energy but it can't dissipate it so it explodes. Two DE saw him coming and they both uttered Avada Kadavra, but their wands just blew up in their hands. He decided to melt these two like his first victim.

Unknown to Harry his three companions had not uttered one spell were just too shocked at his display of magic. A French wizard by the name of Marcelle Lacasse who worked for _Le Monde_ happened to be present in the restaurant and witnessed the battle. He did not know who this wizard was. He could not make out his facial features as he was too far away. It didn't matter. He was witnessing some serious magic. Someone had finally taken the courage and power to take on those bastards and tomorrow all of wizarding France was going to hear about this Scorpion Wizard.

Meanwhile Harry heard a voice say Morsmodre and the dark mark appeared in the sky. Just as quickly he uttered **Ahak-Nakeb **a giant scorpion also appeared in the sky and attacked the death mark. The scorpion stung the snake, and then the mark just broke apart. The scorpion reared up as if bowing and then disappeared. He then heard a spell and he just apparated 20 feet away.

He cast an anti apparition ward and an anti listening charm on the last DE. He knew how those cowards worked. When the going got rough they just disappeared. Not this time. His next spell was accio mask. The mask just ripped off of the DE's face and now Harry remembered who that voice belonged too.

"Well,well, well look who we have causing mayhem and chaos today. Antonin Dolohov!"

"Potter! What the fuck are you doing here, you little shit?"

"Well isn't it obvious, I'm here to kill you slowly you fuck! You enjoy torturing the innocent don't you? You like raping young? You are a fucking decease on this earth, you piece of shit. When I'm through with you your pain will become legendary even in Hell"

For one of the very few time in his life Antonin Dolohov was scared. Potter has just wasted 18 of his brethrens by himself. The only thing wrong with him was a simple cut on his thigh. He decided not to fuck around and cast Avada Kedavra. Harry was expecting this and apparated 10 feet behind him and cast _**petrificus totalus**_. Dolohov hear the spell just in time and side stepped it while casting **supor-sodalis. **Harry recognized it as the purple flame he used on Hermione.

He cast his most powerful shield **nisi-šen-šun **an emerald dome formed around Harry and when the spell hit it was simply absorbed. Harry apparated within two feet of Dolohov and with his enhanced speed used his katana and hacked off his wand arm at the elbow. Dolohov screamed and Harry cast another _**petrificus totalus.**_

Harry walked to him and picked him up by his hair. He then looked into his eyes and with all of his power he brought forth the magical aura of a dementor and began attacking his memories. While he was freezing and screaming his mind off. Harry easily slipped by his mental shields and found all of Voldemort's current plans. There wasn't as much as he expected to find but it was a good start.

Harry released him and snapped his wand. Harry then levitated him to an upright position. Dolohov was drooling all over himself a managed to look at Potter in the eye. Looking into his eyes he knew then that there would be no mercy for him.

He just wished that he would get on with it. In reality he had very little tolerance to pain. Harry looked at him and said,

"Antonin Dolohov, for your crimes against wizard kind and muggles alike, you are sentenced to death"

Harry took his sword and ran him in the gut with the blade end facing upward. Then in jerky upward thrust he began to eviscerate him. At every upward thrust of his sword Dolohov screamed and screamed in pain. The last thought that Dolohov had was that his master was in deep shit. With that Dolohov exhaled his last breath and breathed no more. Harry then pulled his katana out of his gut and in one swift motion he cut the head off. He then took a twig and transfigured it into a 4 foot pike. He then took Dolohov's head and skewed it on the pike.

When that was done Harry went over to his stunned DE and put a tracking charm on them. He then put a _petrificus totalus_ on them and woke them up. He pulled off their mask and let them have a good look at the battle field. He took one of the death eaters hand and handed him Dolohov head. He then cast a sticking charm on the death eater's hand. Harry then said.

"Go back to your snake face master and tell him what the Scorpion Sorcerer did today. Tell him that I'm coming for him. Tell him that he is living on borrowed time. This is but a sample of what is to come"

With that he altered their memories so that they would not remember his face. He then activated their portkeys. After that was done he cast a wide area disillusion charm to keep the muggles out and limped over to Bill's position. They all had their mouths open and couldn't manage to utter a word.

Harry seeing the shock on their faces said.

"I'll explain everything, but we need to get the hell out of here. The French aurors are starting to apparate. Fleur is there anywhere we can go to nurse our wounds?"

Fleur just looked at Harry for a second and snapped out of her thoughts she looked at Gabrielle who seemed to be in shock.

"Yes Arry, we can go to my home at Delacour Manor!"

"O.K There are anti apparition and portkey wards but I can get us out of here"

"How?" Bill said. He was clearly feeling flustered and overwhelmed by now.

"I'll explain later Bill, but I need the Delacour Manor co-ordinates!" No one was moving

"NOW" Harry screamed.

Fleur showed him a map and he memorized it. He then picked up one of the china plates on the ground and programmed his apparating signature and took his wand and cast _Portus. _

"Hold on to the Plate" They all touched the plate and Harry yelled

"Activate"

They all punched through the wards and disappeared.

_Well, this is a start to a lot more action down the road. I would like to thank everyone for their comments. A Harry and Dumbledore confrontation is coming very soon. If you are wondering, Xiana will eventually become Harry's future wife. Well that's it for now._


	11. Chapter 10 Phoenix Burning

**Chapter 10 " Phoenix Burning"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry and his group suddenly appeared on a beautiful looking terrace.

Fleur said "Follow me, my mozer will be able to help us."

Harry quickly dusted himself off, and followed Fleur and the rest of the gang towards the beautiful French manor. They walked a little ways up this black cobble stone pathway. Bill was carrying Gabrielle followed by Fleur, Xiana and he was guarding the rear. Fleur opened the backdoor to the manor and yelled

"Maman, ou est tu?"

"Ici, darling, why are you back to early?" Madame Delacour came into view and screamed.

"Vat is wrong with my baby!" She ran to Gabrielle to go pick her up.

"Ve vere attacked by death eaterz. Harry pulled Gabrielle away from the killing curse. She may be in shock. Maman we need ze healer!"

"Yes, of course" replied her mother. She carried Gabrielle up to her room and when she came down, she went to the fireplace and made a couple of floo calls. When she was done she came back and said.

"Fleur take your friends to the dining room and get some drinks going. Madam LaSalle is on her way. I have also called your father and he should get here within 30 minutes." She looked really nervous and walked back to Gabrielle's room.

By this time Fleur had given each one of her friends a large glass of Napoleon brandy. She took a seat and took a good look at everyone. Her eyes settled on Harry and said.

"Arry, I want to thank you a second time around for saving by baby sister from death yes."

"I'm just glad I made it on time, those blasted curses were too damn close this time around. I think Gabrielle is understandably in emotional shock. She came very close to dying today" Harry had that far away look in his eyes as he was talking. They could all see the haunting look in his eyes when he spoke.

Xiana was nearly in tears and said "Harry, I want to personally thank you for saving all of our lives today. If it weren't for you we would most likely be dead. No insult on your abilities is intended Bill."

"None taken Xiana, I know that I couldn't have taken on 18 death eaters and survived. The question I want to know is how Harry was able to do this?"

They all turned to him and he looked at each one of them. This was as good a time as any to get some kind of handle on their feelings and thoughts. He brought out his legilimens abilities and began to gently probe each one in turn.

He was glad in that everyone was still recovering from the shock of the attack. Their natural mental shields were weaker than normal, and he was able to slip by with next to no pressure. Looking at Bill he could see that the man was very confused. He could not believe that a 16-year-old kid had done this much damage. He went digging further and found out that his loyalties for Dumbledore were not cast in stone.

Harry got the impression from Bill that the old man was not fighting the war effectively. Well, Well Harry thought. This is quite interesting. He found that he was a very proud individual like all Weasleys and was very much in love with Fleur.

He looked at Xiana, and found that she felt ashamed at her performance during the battle. She missed her dead twin brother very much. She was very insecure and felt incomplete. Not unusual Harry thought. Magical twins share an even deeper mental connection then muggle twins do. Looking into her mind he received the impression that she had a big rift with her family. She was a proud woman and Harry imagined that all Zabinis were proud. Finally he got the impression that she liked him a lot. Interesting times three he thought.

He turned towards Fleur and found that she was also a very proud woman. She was very close and protective of her baby sister. She loved Bill very much. She did not know if she wanted to move to England and leave her beloved France. She had been very surprised by the savage brutality that he had used to deal with the death eaters. She was a bit intimidated by him now. Shit, Harry thought, he vowed to make her understand why he had acted the way he did. Harry finally said.

"When we have all seen the healer, and had a few more of these mentally relaxing drinks I will give you some of these answers. You must understand that I cannot reveal everything. Everyone has secrets. I will give you enough information for all of you to make your own opinion of me. If you can't accept what I am trying to do, I'll understand." They all thought about it for a minute and they agreed that it was a reasonable request.

Xiana was dying to know how he could fight so well. She had been so damn scared when the attack came. If Harry hadn't taken charge and told them what to do, she would have made a break for it. She felt so ashamed for being so scared and freezing up like that. Here she was a graduate of Beauxbatons and she felt she couldn't fight her way out of a gnome attack if she tried. She felt so useless. Here was Harry Potter, still in school and he ended saving all of their asses. How bloody humiliating was that?

Xiana thought that he looked so mature and yet he looked like he was so alone. Xiana was brought out of her thoughts when they all heard the fireplace roar. Madame LaSalle stepped out of the fireplace and walked over to Fleur immediately. Madame LaSalle said.

"Fleur, where are you hurt?"

"Oh, I'm fine Madame but Gabrielle, Xiana and 'Arry are hurt. If you guys don't mind, could Madame see Gabrielle first?"

Both Harry and Xiana said it was perfectly all right. Plus the Brandy was starting to act as an effective painkiller at any rate. Within 40 minutes Madame had looked at all of their wounds and with some effective spell casting and some potions they were made good as new. Finally Bill's curiosity got the better of him and said.

"Well Harry, let's see if we can get some of these questions answered." He said that more as a statement then anything else. It annoyed Harry a bit, but he let it go. He needed to start building his ranks. Every war has generals and soldiers.

"All right, why don't we go into your backyard Fleur, I have to show you something." Harry turned to Xiana and said, "We just met this morning, but I feel I can trust you. On top of that, you are a friend of Fleur's and I trust her. You are more than welcome to join them."

"Thank you Harry, I would be honored to be included in your group of friends."

With that said, they walked towards one of the Unicorn statue. It truly was breath taking. It was made of pure white marble and a solid silver horn sticking out of its forehead. Harry dug into his pocket and took out what looked to the others as a small rectangular box the size of a muggle paper back book. It was black and had diamonds covering its sides.

Harry put it down on the ground and enlarged it. Bill was looking at this enlarged trunk with fascination. It seemed to be a third bigger than your average trunk. There were also fist size elliptical diamonds inlaid into the outside wood panels. Harry put his hand to the H.P engraving, the lid of the trunk glowed blue for a second, and then a click was heard. Harry led the way and proceeded down a set of stairs.

Fleur, Xiana, and then Bill followed Harry down the steps. Bill reflected that he had never seen a trunk that had a set of stairs that went this deep. They must have dropped 20 ft into the trunk before they came to a stop. They were then staring at a set 15-feet high metal door. This was a metal that Bill was not familiar with. Harry turned around and said.

"Before we go in, I need you all to swear a wizards oath that you will not divulge the secrets that I am about to show you." They all swore a wizard's oath to that effect.

Harry then explained to them that blood wards protected the entrance, but since they were with him, he just needed to key their magical signatures to the portal. They all came forward and placed their palms on the crystal and they were all recorded in turn. Harry then opened the first set of doors and repeated the same procedure for the inner doors. When the group finally walked past the inner doors and had their first look inside they became speechless.

They kept opening and closing their mouths for a few seconds until they managed to snap out of their wonder. Everyone was deeply impressed with the living accommodations. Harry decided to give them the grand tour. He showed them the living room, the kitchen, dining room, library, training gym, potions lab, the upstairs bedrooms, baths, and the electrical generators. Fleur said.

"Arry, this is incredible. From the floors to the furniture's, this place is amazing!"

Xiana was speechless. She was utterly impressed with the display of magic that went into creating this home. She was curious and said "Is this your official home Harry?"

"No" answered Harry. "This is my portable home away from my real home. I discovered my real home early this summer. "

Xiana said nothing but gave Harry a long stare and merely raised her right eyebrow. Bill finally recovered his vocal cords and said.

"Where in the name of Osiris did you buy a trunk like this?"

"I didn't buy it Bill, I made it. Here let me show you" He brought them back down through the living room and on to the library. He went to the outer left shelf and under _crafts_; he pulled out his fabrication manual and handed it to Bill. Bill picked up the book and started studying it. The more he read the more he became impressed with the fabrication details. Finally Bill said.

"Well Harry, reading your book I have no doubt that you built this trunk. This is way too detailed to be anyone else's work. However the time needed to build this palace would have taken a lot longer than a month. How did you manage to construct this so quickly?"

"I'll answer your question, but first let's get comfortable as this could take a while."

Harry brought them back to the living room where every one took a chair by the fireplace. Xiana took the time to admire the Potter family tapestry. Studying the tapestry, Xiana realized that the Potters were an ancient wizarding family.

Harry sat them down and went to the bar. He came back and gave them each a glass of 16-year-old Lagavulin single Islay malt whisky. Harry thought that they were going to need this with the story he was about to tell them. Harry knew that he was on delicate grounds. He needed them to understand that although he used dark magic, he was not evil. He wanted them to understand that magic is not black or white. They ought to realize how corrupt the magical ministry was. Above everything else, Harry wanted them to understand the events that led him to make the decisions that he did.

Harry decided to start with the event before the start of his 5th year. He explained about the botched attempt by the ministry to have him expelled from Hogwarts. He described the events leading up to the dementor attack on him and his cousin. He then explained the trumped up charges from the ministry and him getting absolved due Mrs. Figg being present to witness the events. Harry then explained Umbridge and all of her power abuse. He showed them the marks from her Blood Quill. At that point Fleur had her hand in front of her mouth looking horrified. Xiana had a murderous look to her and Bill just shook his head.

Harry then explained about the defence club that he co-founded with his former best friends. Bill looked up sharply when he said former best friends and made a mental note to ask Harry to explain what he meant.

Harry then explained how Dumbledore told him to take Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape. He told them of the sheer animosity between him and Snape and the botched Occlumency lessons. Harry described the mental connection between himself and Voldemort.

Harry explained how he had fallen into Voldemort's trap by believing a false vision sent to him. Harry recounted to them that the planted vision was about his godfather Sirius Black being tortured at the department of mysteries. Harry told them of his meeting with Umbridge after his OWL exams, and her admission that she was the one who sent the Dementors after him and how she was willing to use the cruciatus on him. He described their escape and their journey to the department of mysteries.

Harry finally explained how they reached the hall of prophecy and the ensuing battle with the death eaters. He told them about the Order of the Phoenix and how they showed up to help them. At this point, Harry took a moment to compose himself, his hands were shaking, and he could barely control the sobs coming from his mouth. Harry could feel hot tears coming down his cheeks. He excused himself for a minute to regain his composure. When he came back he told them how his godfather died at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange by falling into the veil.

Harry told them that on the same night that his godfather died, Dumbledore decided to let him know about a prophecy between him and Voldemort. At this point he did not elaborate on the specifics but let them know that in the end he has to kill or be killed by Voldemort. Harry then described how betrayed he felt at Dumbledore's hands and the rest of the wizarding world.

Harry made them realize that Dumbledore knew of the prophecy since he was born, but never bothered to train him to help face his destiny. He explained the betrayal of his parent's wishes for him to be sent to a loving family. Harry felt it was necessary to explain to them his early years at the Dursleys.

By this time the girls had tears in their eyes, and Bill had a murderous look on his face.

He also recounted to them how Dumbledore had manipulated him and kept the existence of his family vault a secret from him. To prove his point he took out the letters from Griphook, Sirius' will and his parents' will, and showed it to them. With these revelations the group simply could not believe the treachery and the pain that he had endured so far.

Harry explained how he snuck out of his uncle's house and made his way to Diagon Alley. He met Griphook and learned about his inheritance and how to put an end to Dumbledore's manipulations. He explained his ultimate desire to train himself to avenge his parents and Sirius.

Harry enlightened them about finding Odin's eye. He didn't go into all of the specifics but enough for them to understand that for every day passed this summer he experienced 30 days in flux time training. Without giving too many details, he listed all of the subjects that he had studied so far.

To say that they were impressed was an understatement. Of course they now understood the incredible price that he paid in his pursuit of knowledge. He had next to no companionship, and his life seemed all work and no play. Harry also detailed his journey and final success with the mind arts.

He explained to them some of his discoveries regarding a new method of apparating, but he kept the major technical details to himself. The group now had a brief understanding as to how he had managed to portkey them through the wards after the battle. He decided not to mention his discoveries of Naquadah and Naquadria. Harry felt that he needed to keep his most profound discoveries a secret for now.

At length, Harry talked about his training regiment and his tutors. He described his breakthrough in body magic mixed with martial arts. He finally told them about his plans to continue his studies with his tutors in charms, transfiguration, and martial arts. He notified them that he was going back to his training regiment until August 21. Then he paused, closed his eyes, and with as much venom as he could muster told them that he was going to confront Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix and sever all ties with them.

The group could literally feel the air getting colder and the air crackling with magical energy when he mentioned Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. At this point Bill's brain was on overdrive. He now remembered the fight between Remus and Dumbledore around the kitchen table. He began to realize just how bad the old coot miscalculated. Bill needed a few more points clarified and asked the next set of questions.

"Harry, Dumbledore has obviously missed the boat on a lot of things, but he always gave the impression that he cared about you." Harry snorted at this.

"I am nothing but a chess pawn to him Bill! He never gave a shit about my feelings or me. He locked me up with muggles that used and abused me. He went against all of my parent's wishes. All he wanted was to keep his weapon safe. Forget about my physical and mental well being. He brought me out whenever Voldemort reared his ugly head. One of the problems with all of this is that he has known about the prophecy since before I was born. Yet, he did nothing to train and prepare me to face my destiny."

After a few minutes of thinking Bill replied, "Why would he not train you? It makes no sense Harry."

"I believe I have found the answer to that question. However I'm afraid you are going to have to wait until August 21 when I confront Dumbledore about it."

"Fair enough." replied Bill. Bill suddenly remembered one of Harry's earlier statements and said.

"Harry what did you mean by former best friends?"

Harry sighed. "Bill, just before we left school, both Hermione and Ron told me that they were going on vacation. The day after I got back from Hogwarts I went to Gringotts. That morning before I went to the bank I stopped at the Leaky Cauldron. Guess who happened to be sitting just behind me?"

"Ron and Hermione" Bill said in a low voice. Bill had an inkling of what was coming next.

"Right you are. I found out that they never had any intention to go on vacation. Instead they were going to train with the Order all summer. But that's not the best part you see. I clearly overheard them talking about being inducted into the Order of the Phoenix last summer. **They fucking lied to me Bill! They god damn betrayed me to that kaniving old bastard all fucking year!**" Harry spat out.

"Are you sure Harry?"

"As sure as the sun comes up Bill. They have been keeping tabs on me, and reporting any unusual occurrences to the headmaster. As I said before, I heard their confession as clear as day. How could they do this to me? I always thought that true friends stick together no matter what. I guess they weren't my true friends after all."

"I don't know what to say Harry. Ron has always had a streak of jealousy, but it seems to be getting worse as the years go by. He probably saw an opportunity to put one over you and didn't properly consider the consequences. I don't think he realizes it, but he is becoming more like Percy as he gets older. His ambitions are overriding his heart."

"You would think that after the events of the Triwizard tournament, he would have learned from his mistakes."

Harry could see how Bill was tormented in admitting this about his own brother and a quick peak into his mind told him that he felt great shame for Ron's actions.

"I know he is your brother Bill, but I will be severing all my ties to him and Granger. I can no longer accept these betrayals from people I once considered family"

"I understand how you feel Harry. I would do the exact same thing in your place. It seems the headmaster's manipulations go a lot further than I ever imagined."

Bill's face grew stony hard when he thought of the headmaster's games. Bill always considered himself a happy go lucky kind of a guy. Maybe he should have questioned the old man's motives a hell of a lot more. One thing for sure, he now believed that when the time came he would sever his ties to the Order of the Phoenix. His conscience demanded no less. He had to get to Charlie and see where he stood.

Harry looked at Bill and decided to push his argument. "Think Bill. Does it make sense to train Granger and your brother with Aurors all summer but keep me locked up in a room to rot away for the rest of the summer? If you were the ultimate weapon against Voldemort wouldn't you want to be trained as best you can? "

It was Xiana who answered, "No Harry, from what you have told us there are to many inconsistencies in your headmaster's actions". Harry decided to peek into her mind and assess her true thoughts. He was surprised by her honesty. She didn't feel pity but rather sad at the way he had grown up. Harry also got the impression that she also felt genuine admiration for him and how he had dealt with his problems. This pleased Harry very much. He was starting to really like Xiana Zabini.

Fleur at this point was thinking very hard. She knew from the Triwizard tournament how noble and brave 'Arry was. However the young sweet boy that she knew then had been replaced with this hardened young man. He was still as brave and noble, but he had definitely lost his innocence. She above anything else wanted to hear his thoughts on studying the dark arts. Finally she said

"Arry, I wanted to know if you have any fear of becoming an evil wizard by studying and using the dark arts no?" Harry looked at Fleur, and knew how he answered this question would either bring her in his camp or sever their ties. Harry said.

"No Fleur! I'm not going to turn into an evil wizard by studying and using the dark arts. Granted what I did today was utterly ruthless. However you must understand that we are in a war. We are in a war with the most despicable creatures on earth. They don't care about rules and regulations. They use the unforgivables as if it were candy. They go after babies, children, rape young girls and women, attack the elderly. Who ever happens to be in their site is fair game. If we are ever going to win against these people, we have got to drop the stupid ministry guidelines and start fighting fire with fire!"

Harry paused to let his words sink in. He could tell that they were considering his words very carefully. He decided to press his argument.

"You know some one once told me that there is no good or evil, only power. I say that there is no light or dark magic. Magic itself is neutral; it all comes down to intent." He took a sip of whiskey and continued.

"Tell me this, what if I use a light spell such as a trip jinx in order to cause someone to fall down a set of stairs with the intent to kill them. Wouldn't this make me evil even though I used light magic?" He waited for them to absorb his words. Realizing that no one was interrupting he continued.

"What if I use a dark spell on a death eater and help prevent an innocent little girl from being raped. Does that make me an evil wizard because I used dark magic even though my intent is to do well? Life is rarely black and white but infinite shades of gray. Magic is no different, it's a tool. How you use this tool determines if you are an evil, gray, or light wizard." No one interrupted so he pressed on.

"Remember this, most of the spells that the ministry considers dark magic is labelled as such because most people do not have the power to cast these spells. Our dear ministry wouldn't want anybody to be better than them. That would be far to threatening to their position!"

Xiana found herself agreeing with everything Harry said. Her family had certainly delved into the dark arts. Some more than others, but none of them turned evil. They could protect themselves with it that's for sure. Her father taught her a bit of dark magic in her 6th year. It was nothing compared to Harry's level. She wanted to really learn how to fight. She hated the death eaters and Voldemort and one way or another she was never going to feel as helpless as she had this morning.

Xiana decided to approach Harry when he was alone and ask him if she could come and train with him. He certainly had plenty of room in this trunk. She had saved up some money and could pay him. She had no attachment here. Her home was England. The only reason she had not gone back yet was that she had no idea of what she would do once she got there. She was still pissed off with the rest of her family.

There was no way in hell that she would agree to any arranged marriage by her parents. She would choose the man she married. Maybe while studying with Harry, she would figure out what she wanted to do. She came out of her musing and caught Harry starring at her. She smiled and slightly inclined her head towards him. Harry smiled back and acknowledged her nod.

Bill and Fleur looked at each other, and both came to the same conclusion. They would both join Harry and train with him whenever they could. It had become painfully clear that he was the central figure in this war and his ideas on fighting it were better than anything out there. They needed to learn dark magic, and from what they had seen Harry do, he would be more than competent to teach them. Bill spoke first.

"Harry, I believe that Fleur agrees with me, and we would like to join you. Do you want us to quit the Order of the Phoenix now? Also I think we would also benefit from you teaching us some dark arts if you are willing."

Harry's face showed great relief at finally gaining some allies. From the book of Sun Tzu, he had learned that no war can be fought without gaining intelligence from the enemy. Harry said.

"I want to thank you both for your support and loyalty. You don't know how much that means to me. I think it might be wise for both of you to stay in the order and gather any intelligence you deem fit to pass on. This way we will have intelligence on Dumbledore and the Ministry's activities. I have a feeling that after Voldemort is taken care of; the ministry will be gunning for us. I for one plan on being ready for that. As for the dark arts, I'll be glad to train you. Just give me times and dates that suite you both"

Bill and Fleur stood up and they both came over to Harry. Bill and Harry shook hands while Fleur kissed him on both cheeks. Fleur said.

"Bill, we need to go see how Gabrielle is doing." They both told Harry that they would meet him later on to organize some training schedules. Harry saw them out of the trunk and came back to the living room to see what Xiana's plans were.

Harry sat himself down and was about to ask Xiana her thoughts when she suddenly spoke up.

"Harry, as I said before, we only met this morning. But I want you to know that I agree with your position. I do condone the use of dark magic especially if it is used for fighting evil. I wish that I could have been of some use this morning. I was so scared and I froze. I felt so helpless! I don't ever want to feel like that again. I have a sixth sense about people, and my gut and my heart are telling me to trust you. With my twin's death, I no longer have any reason to stay here. I have enough money and if you would be willing, I would like you to teach me dark arts and how to fight."

Harry could read the anguish on her face. Her beautiful eyes were locked with his, and Harry could tell that she clearly meant what she said. He had seen her thoughts and knew that she would not betray him. Truth be told, he was yearning for companionship. The quicker he could build a war council the better it would be for him. Harry knew that he could not fight the war by himself. Harry replied.

"Xiana, I'll be glad to help you train. I can use every ally I can get. I must admit, that my training up to now has been quite lonely. Write down all of you training and any special abilities that you have, and I'll design a training plan to bring you up to speed as quickly as possible. You have already finished your NEWT so you should have a very good grounding in the core courses. We will go back to my official home later this evening. Tomorrow afternoon I'll be meeting with my martial arts, charms, and transfiguration tutors. If you want you can take part in these tutoring lessons with me."

Harry could see her smile. He did not need to poke into her head to know that she was genuinely glad that he accepted her to train with him.

Xiana said, "Thank you so much Harry. This means a lot to me. "

"You're welcome." Harry replied.

They spent the rest of the afternoon talking and getting to know each other better. They both found it very easy to talk to each other. They each realized how like-minded they were. In talking with her, Harry found that she was an animagus and that her form was that of an Egyptian Saker Falcon.

She in turn found out that he was a parseltongue. For some reason Harry found himself able to finally talk about Sirius and how he died. He had ruthlessly repressed his feelings of mourning for so long. He missed his godfather a great deal and felt cheated on not being able to tell him how much he loved him.

Xiana in turn told him about the death of her twin. She never had a chance to say goodbye. The body had been cremated before she had a chance to see him one last time. All she was told was that he had died from some ancient curse while on a dig in Egypt. She did not lay any blame on the curse but rather on her parents for forcing Xoran to be on his own too early with no support.

Xiana explained that her brother met this really wonderful muggleborn witch of modest means and they fell in love. One thing led to another and she became pregnant with his child. Because she was of modest means, her parents wanted Xoran to force her to have an abortion and leave her.

He immediately became disgusted with their parents. One thing led to another and Xoran decided to dissociate himself from the Zabini name. Not long ago his girlfriend and wife to be Liana gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She has her family to help support her, but she is still struggling. Xiana explained that part of the reason she also stayed behind after graduation was to help Liana with her little nephew.

Harry could tell how much she despised what her family had done. Harry looked at his watch and realized that it was nearly 6:00 pm. He told Xiana that they had to get going. She asked him if she could drop off at her apartment and pick up her possessions. Harry agreed and they decided to say good bye to Fleur and Bill. They also wanted to say farewell to Gabrielle.

They got out of the trunk. Harry reduced and pocketed his trunk. Xiana shook her head slightly. She still could not believe the display of magic that went into creating his trunk. They made their way to the back of the Manor, and met Fleur and Bill sitting in the lounge. It appeared that Fleur's father had arrived home. The moment he spotted Harry, he came over and introduced himself.

"Bonjour Arry, my name is Armand Delacour. Fleur and Bill explained how you saved by baby girl early this afternoon. I just want to say that I am in your dept. If not for you I would be burying my daughter right now. If you need anything please let me know. I just came back from the battle scene, and let me say that those bastards deserved everything they got in spades."

"Thank you, sir. I am very fond of Gabrielle. I couldn't sit still and watch her be murdered in cold blood. "

"Gabrielle would like to see you before you go, is that o.k.?" Armand said.

"No problems, sir." Harry replied. They took their leave of Bill and Fleur. Bill told him that he and Fleur were going to use their weekends to train with him. Harry told Bill and Fleur that it was a great plan. This way they would not arouse any suspicion.

When Harry entered Gabrielle's room, she noticed him right away, jumped out of bed, and threw herself into his arms. Harry picked her up and sat down on her bed. She thanked him profusely for saving her life again. She was shaking and crying on his shoulder. Harry held her tight and gently rubbed her back. Harry really felt awkward around crying girls. He guessed that with practice he would get used to it.

Harry told Gabrielle that she was going to be O.K. He told her that she was brave and that she would make a formidable witch when she was older. He tucked her into bed and kissed her forehead.

Watching the interaction between Gabrielle and Harry, Xiana couldn't help but admire his gentle side. He genuinely cared for people close to him. Xiana came over and showed him a map with the coordinates of her apartment and apparated there with him. Once in the small apartment, Harry enlarged his trunk and told her to find herself a room she likes upstairs and to take all of her things there. Harry helped her with her books and other items.

**Morning of July 31 at 4 Privet Drive**

Remus Lupin was under an invisibility cloak and was carefully making his way to #4 Privet Drive. He looked at his watch and noticed it was 4:30 am. It was early enough that the Dursleys should be sleeping. At least he hoped that no one was awake. He approached the house and carefully looked at his surrounding. He wanted this to be as quiet as possible. He whispered Alohamora on the front door and carefully made his way inside.

He stayed in the entrance way for a little bit, letting his wolf senses assess the situation. He senses picked up nothing unusual and he proceeded to the kitchen. Remus approached the kitchen and stopped in his tracks. He looked at the kitchen table and was utterly bewildered by the contraption lying on top of the table.

He noticed a crystal vase sitting on an obsidian stand. The vase was pulsing at regular intervals. It was pulsing with a deep crimson color. Remus looked closer and now recognized crystals and blood in the vase. This was beyond anything he had ever seen or understood. To say that he was freaked out was an understatement. He decided to do some more exploring so he cast a sound proof spell on this boots and proceeded up the stares to Harry's room.

Remus made sure to keep good balance and stopped every four steps to listen for any sound. Hearing no sound he made his way to the bedrooms. Remus began having an uneasy feeling. He finally made it up the stairs and noticed Harry's bedroom door was cracked slightly opened. He opened the room and to his great surprise he noticed that the room was bare except for his old trunk, which was sitting at the end of his bed. The bed was made but looked liked it had not been slept in for weeks. At this point Remus was starting to panic. He went to the trunk and opened it. It was completely empty?

He decided to check on the other occupants. If he found out that they hurt Harry Remus was not going to control himself anymore. He was going to loose it. Remus decided to check on his whale of a cousin He opened the door but found no one there. He then decided to check the master bedroom. He opened but found the same evidence as in Harry's room.

It looked like no one had been here in a while. At this point he was starting to really panic. He made his way back to the living room and sat down on a couch. He needed to think things out. As he sat down he noticed a calendar by the fire place it appeared to have lines across the dates. He got up and went to take a closer look. Remus noticed the word vacation written on top of the crossed out lines. He flipped the calendar and noticed that the lines ended Aug 18?

Remus was now completely loss. Did Harry go with his relatives on vacation as a birthday present? That seemed highly unlikely. Hell they despised him. Of course these days, Harry gave as good as he got. If Tonks' story is to be believed, the Dursleys got a kick in their rear end last month. Maybe they shipped him out somewhere? Did Voldemort get to him?

That last one was the most unlikely scenario. There would have been an attack and the wards would have alerted them at any rate. The final thought that he dreaded the most was that Harry had run away. Remus knew the anger that the teen was harboring. Dumbledore sent him back to a place he does not consider home without any moral support from people who essentially hate him.

Remus knew what was happening at headquarters, and he could not fathom the logic that the old goat was using. Remus was getting genuinely pissed at the puppet master. Harry was the last link to the marauders. He loved the kid as if he were his own.

Remus knew that deep down he was close to making a life altering decision soon. His loyalty to the marauders and to James and Lily demanded no less. He would quit the Order of the Phoenix and sever all ties to that manipulative old bastard. He cared for Harry first and foremost. He still respected the old mans' powers, but not the man himself.

Dumbledore made far too many law breaking decisions for his taste. Remus finally made up his mind and decided to wait around. If past experience were any indication, someone would show up sooner or later. To get to the bottom of this, somebody would have to stay in the house. Tonks and Moody needed to agree to his proposition. He decided to make himself comfortable and wait.

Remus sat on the couch and drifted off to sleep. Suddenly his Phoenix pendant started to get hot. He swiftly got off the couch and looked at his watch. It was now 12:30 pm. Oh, Oh, trouble in paradise, he thought. Remus sat thinking for a minute and decided to apparate back to Grimmauld place. When he got there the whole place was in pandemonium. Kingsley, Fletcher, Tonks, Arthur, Charlie, Bones, Donavan, Minerva, Molly, Moody, and Dumbledore were gathered around the table.

Dumbledore got up and everyone went quiet. Dumbledore then said "Alright everyone! We just got word from the ministry, Voldemort is attacking Azkaban as we speak, I have portkeys for everyone, please take one, and activate. Stay in groups of three and try to stop the death eaters from escaping. **Everyone activate!**"

Remus was about to pick up his portkey when Tonks accosted him and in a low voice said.

"Did you get a chance to talk to Harry?"

Remus said, "Harry is not there, and it looks like no one has been there for some time. To hell with keeping watch from a distance he said. We need to be present in the house when someone shows up to get some answers. "

Tonks thought about this for a while and said, "All right, I'm in. You need to get Moody on board. One question that has been running on my mind is do we tell the headmaster about these development?"

"No! Let's keep this between us for now. No need arising undue suspicion on Harry." They then picked up the portkey and they were off.

Later that evening everyone had long faces. There had been a multitude of attacks across England and overseas. This had greatly stretched ministry and the Orders resources. The main target had been Azkaban. Regardless of their efforts, it had been ransacked. Voldemort had cleaned the place out and had rescued his inner circle to boot. As predicted by Dumbledore the Dementors had left their post and joined Voldemort. There were rumors coming from the ministry that one of Voldemort's raids had failed miserably and he had lost many troops. No other information was forthcoming however.

To make things a lot worse, the youngest Weasley boy Ron was bragging that with his new training he could have stopped some of the death eaters. Remus thought that the little shit was getting way overconfident. Hermione was no better. She actually thought that she was ready to step up to the plate and fight death eaters at will. He had witnessed their duelling skills. They weren't up to spec that's for sure.

There arrogance was getting a bit much. In reality they wouldn't stand a chance. Death eaters don't play to lose. They go straight for the jugular. Their current training is no match for people who have mastered the unforgivables.

Remus decides to retire early to his room and think on this morning's event. He couldn't hide his feelings of worry concerning his cub. To hell with the Order, he thought. He had to get back there tomorrow. With these thoughts in mind, Remus laid himself to bed and went to sleep.

**July 31, 2:30 pm At Riddle Manor in little Hangleton**

There had been early celebrations going on at Riddle Manor that afternoon. The Dark Lord himself was quite happy with his success at breaking Azkaban. Having the Dementors on his side was quite a bonus. He was now waiting for his remaining squads to come back from their raids. It did not take long for hell to brake loose. The Dark Lord would mark this day as a victory with worry. However unknown to him, this would also be the day where the end of the Dark Lord's reign began.

The Dark Lord was in deep discussions with Bellatrix when the recently released Lucius Malfoy came barging through in the throne room and bowed low to his masters and said.

"My Lord! There has been a serious situation developed with our attack team in France!"

The Dark Lord sneered and said, "What do you mean a serious situation? You better start making sense Lucius. I do not like playing games."

"My Lord, I beg your indulgence to come and see for yourself. I do not think that you would believe my explanation."

The Dark Lord looked at him for a few seconds and said," Very well, show me. I want all of my senior lieutenants to be present. Bellatrix, Lucius, Rabastan, Crabb, Goyle, Rudolfus, Liam, Snape and Avery meet me in the portkey chamber."

When they got there they were dismayed beyond belief. Three of their brethren looked to be in a catatonic state and one of them was holding the decapitated head of Antonin Dolohov. The Dark Lord was surprised to say the least. Of his 22 men attack team, three were left. One of his senior members was decapitated. This act of ruthlessness was unheard off from ministry aurors. Except for Romania, all wizarding ministries shunned such acts of brutality. He needed some answers fast. Finally he said.

"Lucius go and fetch my projection pensive. Crabbe and Goyle gather these imbeciles and bring them to the throne room. The rest of you get our new recruits, I want them to see what new battle tactics the Aurors are using." The Dark Lord would later ponder why decided not legilimens these cretins. In one single move he had instilled terror into his troops from an unknown power. This fear would later play quite well into his opponent's hand.

They all gathered in the throne room. And the Dark Lord instructed these last three to put their memories of the battle scene into the pensive. They had all been prepared to see some new Auror tactics that they could study and learn from.

What they saw however was nothing of the sort. The first few minutes of the fight had been predictable but it quickly turned into a horror show that had some of his new recruits pissing themselves. They witness one faceless wizard utterly obliterate their brethrens. None of them including the Dark Lord had ever seen this type of dark magic and brutality.

Severus was shocked for two reasons. One he could not imagine a wizard wielding this kind of power. Second he had never once in his service to the Dark Lord seen him with a look of fear on his face. The fact that the Dark Lord did not recognize this kind of dark magic was baffling to say the least. Severus paid close attention to the battle scene and tried to memorize as many details as possible. He had to show this to Dumbledore.

Finally after studying the battle scene a few more times, the Dark Lord said, "Well, well, well. It would seem we have a new player in town. We need to find out all we can about this wizard. I want you to hit all of our information resources, bars, banks, stores, and restaurants. I want all contacts to be alerted tonight. I want information on this bastard in three weeks time. If you fail me, there will be dire consequences!"

Suddenly Avery spoke up "My lord, I was just doing some scanning charms and noticed that these three have been tagged with a tracking charm that I do not recognize?"

The Dark Lord's face twisted in pure fury, whipped out his wand, and cast CRUCIO on the three victims. They screamed and convulsed on the floor for what must have been 5 minutes. **"You fools, you may have compromised our location. All of you work as one and remove the charms immediately."**

"Right away my lord!"

Everyone was just staring at the victims when Voldemort screamed **"You morons, you have your assignments, now scram before I feed you to my pet!"** Everyone immediately trampled over each other to get out of the way. After everyone was out of the throne room, Voldemort decided to ask Snape if he had made any headway with the muggle loving fool on getting the little shit back into his Occlumency lessons.

"Snape!" Voldemort bellowed.

Snape rushed to the Dark Lord and went on one knee and said, "You called my lord"

"Yes, I need to know how you made out with getting the brat back on his Occlumency lessons!"

"I am sorry my lord, but the muggle loving fool will only allow me to do so come September."

Voldemort said, "You have failed me Snape." Before Severus could reply, the Dark Lord cast CRUCIO for a good 2 minutes. Voldemort lifted the curse and said.

"You can redeem yourself by finding out where he lives and plan his capture. I need to access him mind. Therefore we will attack him within three weeks time. Make the preparation. Do not fail me again Snape. You are not exactly high on my favourites list right now."

"Yes, my lord." After his lord's permission, Severus picked himself off the ground and made his way to the portkey room. Severus was officially cornered and he knew it. He had to find a way out of this. He wanted nothing more than for the little bastard to suffer, but his loyalties were with the old coot. Little did Severus know that a muggle by the name of Vernon Dursley would see him out of his tight spot?

Maybe he could leave a warning of an attack to Potter but do it on very short notice as not to arouse suspicion. Severus took his portkey and off he went back to Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, the Dark Lord pondered his situation. His dark arts knowledge was not fully recovered yet. There were power rituals that he needed to complete and he could not afford to retrace back his steps across the world to acquire this knowledge. He had to break into that worthless brat's head. Easier said than done, he thought.

He could not afford to wait for September, with this threat to his power, he needed to take action soon and for that he needed his full knowledge back where it belonged. That little bastard had been the bane of his existence for far too long.

The Dark Lord carried on with his planning, lost to his own mind and oblivious to the rest of the world.

_**Back at Xiana's Place**_

Xiana came back out of her trunk bedroom. She had chosen the bedroom across from Harry. She thought the whole concept of a trunk manor to be absolutely brilliant. When she knew Harry a lot more she was going to ask how he did it. Heck her new bedroom had more space than her whole apartment. She had never tried a muggle whirlpool bath. She was excited to try. She came back down through the living room and heard Harry swear in the library. She made her way and asked him.

"What's wrong Harry?"

Harry replied, "I put a tracking charm on those idiots earlier this afternoon and just as I was going to pinpoint where they had port keyed the charm disappeared. I have a general location. It's some where close to a place called little Hangleton but that's it. They must have discovered the charms and disabled them. "He put away the atlas geography globe that he had been working with and asked Xiana.

"Are you finished with your packing?"

"Yes, I just carried in the last of my boxes. We can go any time you want." They both made their way out of the trunk and Harry shrunk and pocketed his trunk.

He took out his wand and told her to hang on to his arm. She looked at him and gave him a coy smile. She took hold of his left arm and Harry concentrated on his new apparition signature and cast the apparition charm. He could have simply done it without his wand but why drain himself. He might as well make use of the amplifying properties of his wand.

Within seconds, they were standing on Potter castle grounds. Xiana had a good look around and found the terrace to be absolutely beautiful. She told him so. He told her that he would thank his elves for their spectacular work.

She noticed the giant weeping willows along with the red oak trees. There were spectacular flowerbeds and a beautiful waterfall that fed a pond where several families of black swans were residing. The grounds and castle must have easily taken over 1000 acres of land.

The entire west side of the grounds was sitting on top of a beautiful cliff. The cliff edge was framed with 3 feet granite wall and walkway. The granite wall circled the entire circumference of the cliff.

Toward the east side, she could see the black granite castle. It was beautiful with its turrets and gargoyle-laden edge.

The doors were decorated with what she assumed was the Potter family crest. On the left hand side was a black unicorn and on the right hand side was a gold griffin. Along the edge of the door were silver snakes. As they made their way towards the door she noticed the scorpion statues and asked him for its significance. He told her that it was to honor the ancient priest who had created the dark magic that he was now using.

Once he said that he noticed two mistakes with his earlier conjuring. The scorpions were missing the black Phoenix. He told Xiana how stupid he was and explained why. He took off his shirt and conjured two mirrors. He told Xiana to hold one mirror to his back. He wanted to remember the details of his tattoos. Xiana did as she was told. She found it very difficult not to touch Harry. He had an incredible physique. His muscles were so well defined.

She was practically drooling, but held herself as only a Zabini can. If this continued she was going to have a nice long cold shower. She looked at his tattoos and could not help admiring the intricate details and the scorpion was simply mesmerizing.

Harry forced himself to concentrate. This was becoming extremely difficult with Xiana so close to him. He was feeling light headed and he figured it was due to his second head stealing the blood from his regular one. He took out his wand and conjured a beautiful obsidian black Phoenix. He levitated he new 6 feet tall statue and set it above and in between his two scorpions. He also noticed that he had etched the Orion nebula.

In Greek mythology, Orion was a giant and a great hunter. Harry realized that he forgot to etch the nebula Canis Major for the star Sirius. He switched the nebulas around. The Head of the Phoenix was facing North and looking at the constellation Canis Major and the Dog Star Sirius. On the south side was the hunter Orion. Now Harry was Happy.

Xiana was now quite impressed with his transfiguration abilities. They went through the front doors and were greeted by Dobby and Winky. Xiana was surprised to see two-house elves being employed. Of course, if the castle is rather large so it's no surprise that there would be enough work for them.

Harry told Dobby and Winky what a fantastic job they had done with the castle grounds. They both blushed and smiled warmly at Harry's praise. He asked them were they were with the upstairs rooms renovation. They were halfway done due to a lack of building material from the muggle manufacturers. Apparently an order was forth coming this week that would allow them to finish. Winky asked them if they were hungry. Harry replied that they were famished. Both Dobby and Winky said that supper would be served within 45 minutes.

Harry decided to give Xiana a grand tour of his home. He started out with the first floor and worked his way to the bedrooms. Harry explained all the renovation ideas that had been completed and explained about the use of muggle electricity and such. He showed her the electricity generators that he had created. For her part Xiana listened to every detail he was giving her. She found the renovated castle to be exquisite in taste and comfort. She loved the blending of exotic woods, marbles, and granite.

Of course Zabini manor was no shack to say the least, but it was not on par with this castle. They ended up on the second floor and once again Xiana chose a bedroom adjacent to Harry's. Her choice of bedrooms was not loss on Harry however. Finally they went back to the first floor and Harry took her to the library. Harry introduced her to Anubis. The snake had startled her at first. If ever there was an intimidating creature it was his snake.

She knew that Harry was a parseltongue but it was still shocking to hear him speak the snake language. Both of them would never know of the events between Anubis and her twin. As smart as Anubis was, he was still a snake and to him all magical humans had different magical signature even twins. He did not recognize Xiana as the twin to his victim.

Harry told Xiana that Anubis had scanned her mind and found her to be worthy. Harry told her that his snake would never bother her. Harry explained to his snake that she was part of the family from now on.

Xiana found those words very comforting. Finally Winky popped in and told them that supper was ready. They proceeded to the dining room and sat down to an excellent French style supper. Harry never realized that they could cook ethnic foods. After supper they both retired to the living room and settled in front of the fireplace.

They both sipped some brandy and looked into the fire. Xiana took that moment to look at Harry. She could see that he was in deep thought and noticed that his face showed a grimace every now and then. She thought he was probably reviewing today's events. For her part she felt quite bewildered herself. This had not been an easy day. The slight throbbing in her arm was a testament to that.

She nonetheless felt happy about her situation today. Well no sense in worrying too much about the future. What will come, will come and there is nothing anyone can do about it. She had lived by that credo all her life.

Finally, Harry looked at his watch and noticed that it was 11:00 pm. "Well Xiana, I guess I'm going to turn in. Tomorrow is going to be busy. I have to get a hold of my tutors. While we train we will be living in the trunk. We will be getting our charms, transfiguration, and martial arts instructor. I will be tutoring you personally with Occlumency and Legilimency if you are interested in learning the mind arts?"

Xiana replied, "Harry that's wonderful. I feel like I have so much to learn, I'll take anything you wish to teach me."

"O.K I'll make up our schedules. I plan on including some leisure and relaxation time during our training I hope you don't mind," he said.

"Not at all, I don't think that I could train for 14 solid hours at any rate." she replied.

They both walked upstairs and said good night. Harry got in his room, changed, and practiced his Occlumency. After 15 minutes his head hit the pillow and he knew no more. Meanwhile, Xiana decided to take a long bath. Baths always helped her relax, and she had a lot to think about. Most of all she needed to sort out her feelings.

While sitting in the tub, Xiana reflected on her family. Zabinis were cool and calculating by nature, but something about Harry simply brought down her natural reserves. After pondering a host of questions, she finally admitted to herself that she was starting to fall for Harry. Maybe this is what they call love at first sight, she mused. She would just let time take care of things.

After and hour-long bath, she got out, dried herself and sank into bed. She loved sleeping au natural and the comfort of this bed was exquisite. Within minutes, she too was fast asleep.

_**August 1, 1997**_

Harry woke up early, and went straight to his physical workout. He always hated missing his physical workouts. He had grown attached to his routine and never wanted to change it. When he was done with his workout, he showered and got dressed. He decided to wear dark gray slacks and a black shirt with emerald and silver tri on the borders. He made sure to put on his basilisk vest and dragon hide boots and his basilisk wand holders. Today was sapphire day. He picked up one of his charmed scorpion earrings, and put it in his right ear.

This was his morning ritual. When he was done he crossed the hall and knocked on Xiana's door. She had apparently woken up early and had showered and gotten dressed as well. She came out of her door looking absolutely radiant and they both went off to breakfast. As usual Dobby and Winky cooked enough food to feed nearly eight people.

"Dobby! How in the world do you expect us to eat all of this food?" Harry said.

Dobby however refused to be chastised and answered." Harry Potter is a great wizard who trains very hard to fight evil wizards. Harry Potter needs lots of food to train sir." Dobby finished deadpan.

Harry just sighed and noticed Xiana's smile. He started smiling as well. Xiana herself couldn't help it. She had immediately taken to Dobby and Winky. She loved the way Harry respected his elves. She had always loathed the way some of the so-called pureblood family's treated their elves.

When they were done breakfast, Harry got up and gave Dobby and Winky more ideas on the castle renovations. Harry had asked Xiana what she thought about his plans, and she had given him many great ideas, which he had implemented in his list. When he was done with his instructions, they both left to go to the front grounds. Harry chose to lay his trunk by one of the big trees. He picked one of the big weeping willows by the pond. He took out his trunk manor, and enlarged it.

They both went inside to set things up. Harry explained how he had set up this system for security reasons. He explained that throughout his training he had never shown his tutors his family castle. He described that the trunk wards were designed to allow a portkey room from which people came and went without coming from the main trunk doors.

Harry then proceeded to key her into the blood ward and keyed her magical signature throughout all of the rooms. He wanted her to have full access to his trunk manor. When they were done he told her to get comfortable and he would be back later this morning. He explained that he had to go to Gringotts in order to contact his tutors.

If Xiana found that weird, she didn't say. She just shrugged her shoulders and went to unpack her boxes. Harry went to the portkey room. He briefly wondered if he should disguise himself. In the end he decided against it. He was sick and tired of hiding. At any rate even if he was found out, he didn't give a shit. It's not like the bird soldiers could do anything against him anyway.

Within seconds he was standing in front of Gringotts. He made his way to the counter and asked to see Griphook. He was told to proceed to his office. After an hour going over documents and such, and giving Griphook his portkey rings for his tutors.

He decided to go have a look at Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley. The thought of his old Firebolt brought a lump in his throat. It was the only present he had gotten from his now deceased godfather. That bloody bitch Umbridge had taken it away and destroyed his beloved Firebolt.

Well you can always replace material things. It's the sentimental value that is priceless. Within 15 minutes he was looking at the new Firebolt SX. It could apparently do an extra 25 km/hr. The thing can go at an astounding speed of 175 km/hr. It was fast, but for some reason he was slightly disappointed.

Harry wondered if he could build his own broom. Hell he built his trunk so why not. What he needed was a special crafts book on broom making. He was sure he could get something like that at Flourish and Blotts. He was about to turn around when he heard the all too familiar voice of one Hermione Granger. Of course the weasel aka former best friend was no doubt close buy as well. He didn't dare turn around just yet.

Ten minutes earlier, Hermione Granger had checked in at Flourish and Blotts to see if the sixth yearbooks were in. Ron was tailing her and complaining to no end about being back here again. Hermione turned around and said.

"Look Ron, we have already been through this. I want to get a jumpstart since our NEWTs are coming in fast and furious. We only have two years to prepare for our finals you know!" Ron gave her this queer look and said.

"Mione! That's two bloody years from now? At any rate we just finished our OWL, we don't even know what courses we can take, and therefore what books to buy?"

"Well, I'm going to get every course subject, that way I won't miss anything, so there." She stamped her foot and humph. She was about to cross the street when she quickly caught a glimpse of a face she thought she knew quite well. She was not sure at first, because this individual had long jet-black hair that went up to his shoulder blades, and was tied in a ponytail. She was sure she caught a glimpse of that well-known scar.

"Ron, see that man over there going towards Quidditch Supplies? I think that's Harry."

"What?" Ron said. "You are barking mad Hermione. There is no way that's Harry. For one thing he is being guarded and Dumbledore wouldn't risk having him out in the open like this. Plus he is way too tall to be Harry."

Hermione replied "I'm telling you Ron, I have a feeling about this!" she said in an irritated voice. Ron knew too well how she hated being questioned.

"Fine, let's go check him out." He replied.

They both started tailing him and when they got close enough to his back Hermione hollered.

"Harry Potter, is that you?"

Harry cringed and slowly turned around. He looked at both of their shocked faces and narrowed his eyes. He had conveniently forgotten about these traitors, but seeing them now, it was starting to piss him off. After about ten seconds, he said.

"Yeah, it's me. I'm out doing some much needed shopping. What do you want?"

Both Ron and Hermione were quite shocked to see that it was Harry. What was more shocking was his extremely cool demeanor. Finally, Hermione found her voice and said.

"Harry, you are not supposed to be out here. It's too dangerous for you! There is a reason why the Headmaster has guards helping to protect you. You have to get back to your house immediately or you are going to get in trouble." She said that as if that settled the arguments, and Harry would do what he was told. What she didn't expect was his reaction.

At this point Harry was fuming. She always thinks she knows more than everybody. That over confidence of her is going to be her downfall. "Well if you like being on house arrest why don't you go?" He sneered at them.

Hermione was taken back a notch by his vehemence, but she was far too stubborn to know when to back down so she plowed on and said, "Well It's not me the Dark Lord is after now is it? Besides Dumbledore knows what he is doing. You should listen to him. You know what happened last time you didn't listen!" If she thought that this would cower Harry she was greatly mistaken.

Suddenly Harry exploded in a towering rage and said, **"How dare you throw my godfathers death on my shoulders. His death is due to that manipulative, cock sucking, slimy, old bastard headmaster and his fucking lap dog Snape. Don't you ever bring this up in my face ever again or so help me god I'm going to fucking hex you into oblivion**. **And who the fuck do you think you are telling me what to do!** **You are not my mother, much less a friend**. **So both of you can crawl back into your dear headmaster's ass and die there!"**

By then Hermione was in shock and her eyes were brimming with tears. Ron's face had turned tomato red. Of course being Ron, and not having any control, he rounded on Harry and pointed a finger right in his face and said.

"Who do you think you are talking to Hermione like that?"

"Well maybe for once she should learn her own limitations about what she knows and what she has no fucking clue about. If she stopped for once being the all know it all she tries to be, and think about what she was saying to me then I may have been more lenient." Harry replied.

Ron sneered and said, **"Getting a little too big for your pants Potter!** You don't seem to understand who your friends are Mr. Bloody Big Shot. You may not think so, but I'm more capable than you will ever be. Maybe it's time to give you a little lesson in manners." By now Ron had a slight grin on his face.

"**Yah, I learned all there was to know about you definition of friendship in 4th year you fucking hypocrite"** Harry replied.

At hearing Harry's comeback, Ron's face went from red to a nasty purple shade that would make his uncle Vernon quite proud. Harry could see Ron was debating whether to curse him or not. Harry looked at Hermione's fuming face and Ron's constipated look. Harry decided to let them have it. He owed them nothing. He brought forth his emulated Dementor aura to full power.

Both Ron and Hermione noticed a glow surrounding him and his eyes were like green shining globes and it looked as if lightning was going off in them. At this point they both looked at each other and they were both thinking the same thing. Harry looked truly frightening. Suddenly they notices a cold chill surrounding them and they began reliving their worst memories. It was as if a Dementor was present. Ron was starting to panic and Hermione had dropped to one knee and was holding her head in her hands. Suddenly Ron found the strength to pull out his wand and cast _**flipendo**_.

Harry saw Ron bring his wand out and release a curse at him. Harry broke contact and quickly side stepped to the right. The spell missed him by inches, while he stepped out of the way, he rapidly flicked his wand back in his hand, and cast _**stupefy**_.

Harry had not tamed his spell either, and Ron was not been quick enough to get out of the way. He was hit square in the chest and flew about 20 feet backwards and hit a cart. He lay crumpled in a heap. Serves the bastard right, Harry thought. Meanwhile Hermione had noticed his wand, and it was not his Holly wand. Where in the world did he get this wand? Lastly, Harry turned towards her and said.

"Better go check on the idiot. You might need some help reviving him. He will be out for a while. I'm going now, but don't worry I'll be seeing your headmaster at headquarters on the 21. We have lots of unfinished business to take care off. See you in the funny papers." He spat. Hermione just glared back at him. With that Harry walked towards Flourish and Blotts.

Hermione stood there in the street for about 15 minutes just too shocked to move. Finally she gathered her wits when she notices a few pops and some ministry aurors showed up to see who had used underage magic. They spotted Ron some 20 feet off and asked Hermione what spell had been used on him. She replied _Stupefy_. It took about 10 minutes with Hermione and the help of two aurors working together to enervate him. When he stood up he was coughing blood. Better get him to St-Mungo's to get a check up. She forgot to tell them that Harry was at Flourish and Blotts.

Why had he been so angry, she thought? Granted she could have used more tack when it came to Harry. She hated being patronized and so had reacted without thinking. One thing for sure, something was drastically wrong. There were so many questions running in her mind. Where was that hate for Dumbledore coming from? Where did he get that wand? How did he become so big in such a short span of time? Granted magic was mystifying and could account for it, but she highly doubted that. He was not only tall but was cut like an athlete? She needed to get to St-Mungo's and then to headquarters. She had to see the headmaster.

Meanwhile, Harry was mad at himself. He let his temper get the better of him. In the process the Order would now go at him with all they had. They would try to track him down and bring him to headquarters for questioning. Well, what the hell, he thought. In 15 days he was going to be emancipated. Oh, well there's no sense crying over spilled milk.

At any rate if felt good to curse the bastard for his betrayal. Harry made his way to the craft section and found the book he was looking on broom building. He paid for it and got out of the store as quickly as possible. He turned a corner and found an empty spot. Harry looked around to make sure no one was looking and apparated back to his home.

He went to see Dobby to find out if he had gotten a shipment of Ironwood yet. He found Dobby and as they had promised they had just gotten back from getting all of the remaining materials to complete the renovations. He asked if there were any Ironwood extras that he could take. Dobby assured him that he had added an extra 20 percent to his purchases to make up for any mistakes and such. Harry took two pieces of wood and thanked Dobby.

By that time it was nearly 11:30 am and he apparated back to his trunks portkey chamber. He went to his workshop and stowed his book and wood and went to find Xiana. She was currently in the kitchen. When she saw him she had a big smile for him. After his encounter with his former friends he found that gesture heart warming. They began to talk and he told her of his little escapade.

Xiana for her part thought that Harry had been far too easy on them. From the way he described his former friends, they were people that she would despise no doubt about it. She hated brash people, but she despised conceited individuals. She understood that they had been friends for a long time and that probably explained why he had not cursed them to a greater extent.

Xiana has kept herself busy by unpacking and getting to know her new living accommodations. She had been very impressed with the pantry and the ethnic food selection. She ended up heating up a Moussaka dish with a Mediterranean salad and some butter beers.

During dinner, Harry found out that Xiana was also a Quidditch freak. He told her about his broom-crafting book that he bought. He told her that on their spare time, if she was interested they could learn to make their own brooms. She was genuinely excited about learning how to make her own broom. They finished dinner and cleaned up. After mealtime was over, they decided to go to the living room and review the training schedule. They agreed to stick with this for the time being.

_**August 1-20 Odin's Months**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs…est. Include 30 min of Tai Chi_

_7:00-7:15 showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 10:00 am Martial Arts /Body Magic_

_10:00-11:30 Ancient Dark Arts Theory/ Practice_

_11:30- 12:00 lunch_

_12:00- 2:00 pm Transfiguration_

_2:00- 4:00 pm Charms_

_5:00-6:00 pm Arithmancy with Xiana_

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-9:00 Rune Studies/ Muggle Studies (Alternate every second day)_

_9:00-11:00 Xiana/ Harry Leisure time._

_Bed_

By the time they were done it was nearly 1:00 pm. They went into the portkey room and waited for his tutors to show up. It didn't take long for Akima, Yadislav Klunichov his charms and runes expert, and Michael O'Toole his transfiguration specialist to arrive. He made sure that everyone knew each other and he proceeded to show everyone their room. Akima knew where to go. Harry had been very happy to see Akima greet him warmly and with a huge grin on his face.

Akima for his part was very happy to be back. He had first accepted this job for the money but soon found himself liking Harry very much. He was very proud of how Harry had dedicated himself into becoming a sword and martial arts expert. He knew that his level of drive and dedication was rare indeed. In the process he in turn found himself becoming a much better wizard. He was eager to learn from the other two experts and hoped that they would also accept to learn from each other.

Once again, Harry asked his other two tutors if they wanted to form a study group so that they could all learn from each other. Everyone had been very enthusiastic with the idea. They listened to Harry's plan and all agreed to the timing schedule. He promised many breaks and left the evenings free for everybody to do what they wanted.

He explained about flux time and how it worked. They had all been interested in seeing the contraption, but Harry made them understand that for security reasons he had to keep it hidden. They understood and proceeded to get settled. And so the last phase of his training began. Little did Harry know that his life would change forever during this time?

**Earlier at 12 Grimmauld Place**

Hermione and a shaken Ron had marched into the kitchen at headquarters with a furious look on their faces. Remus Lupin, Minerva McGonagall, Tonks, Moody, and Dumbledore were sitting at the table eating one of Molly Weasley's fine lunches. Moody looked up and noticed their faces and said.

"You look like you ran into some trouble. Did you find any death eaters?"

"No, but we ran into Harry and just came back from St-Mungo's." At those words, everyone stood up from his or her chairs. The twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes was gone and his face became a mask of concern. Dumbledore was the first to gain his voice and said.

"Please sit down and tell us what happened from the beginning."

Hermione started from the time they left Flourish and Blotts. She told them about spotting Harry, and confronting him at Quidditch Supplies. She told him about his physical changes. Hermione then explained how they had confronted him about being seen in the alley and his sarcastic comments and very condescending language towards the headmaster.

Finally, she explained about Ron trying to bring him in but he ended being cursed by Harry instead. She also explained how they had felt before things got physical. She described the strange glow in his eyes and the white aura surrounding his body. She then explained how incredibly angry he was and when he turned his hate on them they began feeling real cold and it was as if they would never be happy ever again. Later on Hermione would curse herself for forgetting to mention the wand.

As their story was told, Dumbledore face took on a look of worry to the point where he collapsed back in his chair and brought his hands to his temple and began to massage them. It seemed that he was developing a splitting headache by the second. Remus Lupin narrowed his eyes and slowly looked at Tonks and then Mad Eye. It was as if a silent massage passed between them all to not reveal their earlier findings to Dumbledore.

Finally, Dumbledore said, "Remus, Tonks, could you please alert the others, we need to call an Order meeting for tonight. It would seem that Mr. Potter has gone sight seeing. He must be found immediately and brought back to his relatives. Alastor could you please follow me to Mr. Potter's residence, we need to see what is going on."

Unknown to Dumbledore, Remus was seething inside. It took all of his strength to not blow a gasket at the old coot. He obviously didn't give a shit in finding out the cause of Harry's desertion from his relations. He just cared about finding him and sticking him right back there. Remus felt himself becoming disillusioned by the minute with this whole setup and Harry's treatment at the hands of the headmaster.

Two hours later, a very disturbed Dumbledore walked into the kitchen at 12 Grimmauld place. Their visit to #4 Privet Drive had left far more questions than it answered. This was perplexing to say the least. After many spells, Dumbledore had finally figured out what the glass vase on the kitchen table was for. It was strengthening the blood wards.

It seems that Harry had come up with a stroke of genius. He would never have expected the boy to come up with something like this. With that contraption, Harry would have been able to leave his house without any deterioration to the blood wards. No alarms would have sounded due to the blood wards staying intact.

The bigger question is how long has this been going on? Where had he gone? What was he up to? There was a multitude of questions with no answers. He had to get the boy back no matter what. If his plan was to succeed, he needed to control the boy to the end.

After supper, the Order met to discuss Harry's situation. After his report, most Order members were shocked. Molly had been the most vocal of the lot, insisting that all resources be sent out immediately to fetch him. Severus had patently called her stupid for pointing out the obvious. At that point, a near riot had broken out between her children and Severus. Dumbledore had gotten mad enough to get everyone's attention. They eventually settled down enough so that some of the members could ask some questions. Hestia Jones was the first to speak.

"Why would Harry leave the safety of his relations?"

"**Gosh, I don't know!** His godfather dies and the headmaster feels that to properly heal he should be made a prisoner under house arrest and forced to endure his relatives who absolutely hate him and treat him like a slave. **Gee**, if it was me I would want to stay!" Remus replied with deep loathing.

"That's enough Remus. We have already gone over this. If you cannot follow orders than I will be forced to remove you from the order." Said Dumbledore with his eyes narrowed.

"Hey, that's fine by me. However, I would like to point out that Harry and I own this property. So if I am no longer part of the order then kindly exit these premises and don't let the door slap you on the ass on your way out." Replied Remus.

No one said anything for a minute while the headmaster was trying to figure out how to not reveal his ultimate plan while appeasing the wolf. It was getting harder and harder to do. Why couldn't people just listen to him without asking so many bloody questions? He knew best how to handle this war.

Finally, Dumbledore realized that he needed a headquarters' and remembered a famous muggle quote. 'To grow a beautiful rose you have to shovel a lot of shit.'

"I'm sorry Remus. I'm afraid that today's events have made me rather upset. I did not mean anything by my words. Please accept my apology." Dumbledore said.

Remus didn't believe a word of it, but just nodded his head at the headmaster and left the room. Finally, after another hour of questioning, everyone left for his or her assignment. If they were not able to find him, then at the very least he promised Hermione that he would show up on the 21. He knew the lad was mad at him. He was going to throw him a few carrots and that should appease him enough.

_**40 weeks later Odin Time**_

It was now August 20 and so many things had happened that it was hard to know where to start. He was sitting in his castle's living room. He was looking at the beautiful blue fire and looked at his wife Xiana. She was reading a book on ancient runes. He marvelled at her beauty and grace.

He remembered their training together. Harry was now realized how little magic wizarding schools really taught. Compared to ancient magic, today's school taught the equivalent of muggle parlor tricks. They could be so much more than they were.

The ministry and the wizengamot body were responsible for the poor magic curriculum being taught. They could allow for a much better curriculum, but Harry was sure that it came down to control and power on their part.

He had quickly learned that Xiana was an expert in wizarding customs and ancient laws. She had also taught him everything she knew of international Politics. After 6 months flux time he now had the equivalent wizarding knowledge of a pureblood wizard. He had learned everything that his father should have taught him had he not been killed. It was incredible how much Dumbledore had fucked his life.

After 6 months of in flux time, Harry had madly fallen in love with Xiana Zabini. He was madly and hopelessly in love with her. She never pressured him into anything, but she was always there for him. He had learned to open up his feelings to her. She was so good at reading him now. She knew when he was sad, happy, or angry. He had also found out that she had a wicked temper. His wife was not someone you wanted to piss off that's for sure. He remembered their first kiss together.

_**Harry Flashback #1 for August 6, 1997 9:00 pm**_

They were playing a game of Pool that he was currently winning. Just has he was about to sink the 8 ball in the left corner pocket, she leaned over and blew in his ear. Naturally he missed and she fell back laughing to pieces. She teased.

"What's wrong Potter? Can't make the shot when it counts?"

Harry blushed and said, "You just watch and see if I can't make the shot when it counts!" He said with a grin.

He took off after her and she squealed in delight and the great castle chase was on. After what seemed forever, he tackled her in the living room in front of the fire. By now they were both out of breath. He was lying on top of her. He was looking at her exquisite sapphire eyes and her beautiful red lips.

Xiana was lying on her back, gaining back her breath, when she noticed Harry looking at her. She looked back at him and her pulse must have doubled. She had never been so close to those gigantic emerald pools. He had the most gorgeous eyes in the world she thought.

His facial features were exquisite and sharp. His lightning scar stood on his forehead as a beacon of power. She felt herself melt into his arms. Suddenly he leaned close to her and she brought her right hand to the back of his head. Their lips touched and it felt as if a lightning bolt had energized her.

She had never felt this in all the times she had kissed. Granted it had not been that many, but she never had this feeling before. She noticed a blue glow surround them. He felt the strength and the heat of his passion for her. She could barely manage a coherent thought. She felt like she was going to rip her clothes off right then and there. Nothing mattered to her in the world except having Harry inside her. She was still a virgin, but by god she wanted him. She opened her mouth slightly and felt his tongue hungrily searching her mouth.

She had never felt such passion rise in her before. She now fully admitted to herself that she had hopelessly and madly fallen in love with this man. He was so intelligent, gentle, brave, and honorable. He had a body that she wanted to ravage beyond eternity. He tenderly ran his hands on her thighs. God she felt herself getting so wet, she couldn't help it. Eventually, Harry pulled from the kiss and said.

"Xiana, I have wanted to say this to you for a long time now. I just want to say that I have fallen in love with you. This is not a word that I have heard or used a lot of in my life. But I know how I feel. I have never before felt that way about anybody before. Over these last months, you have become my best friend, my confident, and I trust you implicitly. Above everything else I admire you."

Xiana found herself crying at those words. She had wanted to hear him say that for a long time now. She could see the love and caring in his eyes. This was the most heartfelt words anybody had ever said to her. She knew what a harsh upbringing he had, and yet he above anyone else truly understood the real meaning of love and compassion.

"Harry, I have never before loved or cherished anybody as I do you. You have awakened a spirit in me that I thought was lost when my twin died. You know all about my family, and yet you have found it in your self to love me. I just wish to tell you that I love you above all others. I cherish you and honor you. "

She could see the tear falling off his eye. She grabbed a hold of him and kissed him with such passion that both their body was shuddering with expectation. After an hour of kissing, Harry finally found the strength to pull away and said.

"Xiana, I have to stop or I don't think I will be able to control myself much longer. I want our first time to be special."

"I understand love. I want our first time to be special too. It is tradition for women of my clan to wait for their nuptial night to loose their virtue. It doesn't have to be that way with us though." Xiana replied.

"Traditions are important Xiana. I can wait as long as it takes." Harry replied.

From then on, Harry strived to make their every moment together special. He would conjure flowers, or make a special meal. Outside of flux time, they made many overnight stays to different parts of Europe. They went back to France. They visited Greece, Italy, and Naples. Their favourite stay had been in the desert overlooking the Nile with the pyramids as a background. They both found a special pull in the ancient land of Egypt. They could not really explain why. They did this until that very special day on August 15.

_**End Harry Flashback #1**_

Over these last 20 months, Harry had absorbed all of his tutor's knowledge to the point where he was also a master in their arts. From his transfiguration tutor he had learned to be an animagus. He was an extinct Egyptian imperial eagle. They were once one of the most feared predators of the sand country. They were jet black and had the sharpest beak, and most powerful talons of any raptor. They had a 10-foot wingspan and could stay airborne indefinitely.

He loved the freedom of his animagus form. 4 months ago flux time, they had gone back to Egypt and transformed into their animagus forms. They had spent until 1:00 am in the morning soaring over the moonlit desert over the ancient Valley of the Kings. The spectacular raw beauty of the desert night had been a moment that he would never forget. He now had many calming memories from which to pick from for his Occlumency practice.

He had also learned how to conjure just about anything and mix it with his duelling and battle strategy. He could conjure shuriken stars, stilettos, obscuring fog, walls, and other weapons. As long, as they were simple and did not include any intricate parts. He could never conjure a muggle gun or any of these types of weaponry. He also learned how to use his conjuring skills towards creature comforts. He could conjure muggle reclining chairs, tea, a full scale English breakfast, and all sorts of different foods. He would never ever go hungry again, that's for sure.

With his charms professor he had furthered expanded his theory and concepts behind wards, curses, and jinxes. He especially concentrated on practical charms for setting up perimeter alarms and personal space detection charms. Everything he learned he tried to come up with ways to incorporate in duelling or in grand scale battle strategies. With his in depth knowledge of Occlumency and Legilimency he had also become a master obliviator. He knew what sectors of the brain to concentrate on, and how to modify, or plant false memories. That had taken quite a while.

His biggest accomplishment had been his final mastery of the ancient dark magic of the high priests. After nearly 4 years flux time Anubis himself declared him a master sorcerer of ancient knowledge. Anubis told him that the ancients would be very proud of him. He could now call forth the darkest of armies. His favourite was the jackal warriors set in the image of Anubis himself.

They stood about 8 foot tall and were pitch black in color. Their faces were the shape of jackals; their hands were adorned with 1-inch claws that could shred anybody's throat. For weapons, they carried scimitars in their left hand and a Kama in their right hand. They were impervious to curses even the unforgivables. They could only be taken down via hand-to-hand combat. A connecting sword strike to the body would cause them to dissolve. The problem was that they were very accomplished combat fighters as well. With his wand at its maximum power, he could conjure up to 200 of these fighters. They were truly fierce warriors. The spell used to conjure them is** Zi-Pà-úrgu-Mìna**.

In terms of magic theory they were simply an incredible work of conjuring mixed with transfiguration. He had been able to accomplish the same thing with his scorpion men. They were the same size as his regular scorpions, but sported the body of a man, with scorpion legs, pincers, and stinger. They however could think on their own and set their own targets. These were the major ones.

He had had also learned some pretty harsh curses. Some of them would cause the person to develop severe arthritis. The spell for that one was **Ñìri-Edakua-Diþ**. Some would cause a person to slowly develop dementia. The list went on and on.

He was also finished with his martial art training. He had fully implemented the weirding way with his sword and martial arts training. The result was truly devastating. The saying nothing comes easy was truly was truth incarnate. His training had not been easy or cheap. However for the first time since knowing the prophecy, he know had a fighting chance against Voldemort.

Shortly after Harry had been going steady with Xiana, he had divulged the contents of the prophecy to her. She had cried at first, but soon realized that there was nothing that could be done but to keep fighting until the end. Not once had she ever had second thoughts about their relationships when she learned of the prophecy. If it was possible, her love for him had become even greater.

Of course it was not just him that had become a fierce fighter. His wife was well on her way to mastering the weirding way of combat. He had divulged to her his findings in apparating, his discovery of Naquadah and Naquadria, his success in wand making, his blood and bone potions. At first she had been flabbergasted at his discoveries. She firmly believed that his discoveries alone merited the order of Merlin 1st class. He had instructed her in muggle sciences. He also introduced her to muggle technology such as computer and taught her Occlumency and Legilimency based on the muggle computer model.

She was now a master occlumens herself and her Legilimency were coming along nicely. He had greatly improved her duelling skills as well. She had never beaten him in a duel, which at first pissed her off tremendously but soon she switched from trying to beat him into simply getting their duel to a draw. She had succeeded twice. On her first draw, he had gotten her a basilisk cloak with a hood. On the back of her cloak, he had engraved the same scorpion design that was present on his cloaks. She had been pleased with her draw and present.

Another facet which Harry was had been very pleased with was how quickly she was picking up the dark arts. Contrary to popular belief, simple parseltongue magic can be learned by those who do not posses the gift. They cannot go as in depth as one who has the gift but enough to be dangerous. Most of her learning's however had come from his Viking dark arts books. She had mostly studied Necron's six volumes. Like him, she had memorized those books and was now quite proficient with the curses.

Harry had spent most of his time with Xiana, but she was not the only ones that he had trained at Potter castle. As previously arranged with Bill and Fleur, they had come by on weekends and entered flux time with them to train in Occlumency, duelling, and dark magic. They were coming along quite nicely. Harry had started training them to fight as a battle unit. He had them learn different formation and had signals. They were starting to become very proficient at this type of fighting.

His joy at seeing their progress was also expressed by the rest of the group. They were becoming confident in their abilities and were very grateful to be able to take part in his training. During some leisure time, he had showed Bill and Fleur Potter castle. They had been quite taken with the layout and beauty of the place. Fleur absolutely loved the castle grounds. Harry was glad to have them as friends. They had participated as Druid and Druidess during their marriage ceremony.

Harry remembered his two favourite days. August 12 and August 15. He had proposed to her on the 12th and they had been married on the 15th.

_**Harry Flashback #2 for August 12, 1997**_

Harry remembered waking up that morning feeling very nervous. He could usually put on a good poker face. That morning however even Xiana had noticed how tense he was. He told her that he had some business to do at Gringotts and that he would be back as soon as he was done there. She told him she would see him this afternoon then. She was apparating back to France to do some shopping.

The previous day, Harry had gone into his workshop and spent the afternoon casting and engraving a Naquadria ring. This was going to be her wedding ring. Harry had finally decided to ask Xiana to marry him today. The ring itself was going to comprise a beautiful sapphire as the centerpiece. He was going to crown it with a wraith of ultra pure diamonds. The blood runes inlaid in the Naquadria were going to be inlaid with emeralds. He had finished the main ring. He needed to get the sapphire and diamonds from his vault and a professional jeweller to mount the centerpiece.

That morning to his amazement he had managed to get the gems and found a jeweller to mount them without any incident. The fact that he had worn a disguise might have helped quite a bit. Later that morning he came back and decided to set the stage. He asked Dobby and Winky to set up a Gazebo by the cliff overlooking the ocean. He told them what he wanted for supper and to choose some high quality champagne.

Xiana had come back that afternoon wearing a beautiful white dress with lilies on it. Harry had fallen in love with the dress. She had been radiating beauty that day. He had told her that they were going to have supper outside overlooking the ocean. That night the view had been spectacular. After supper Harry had rigged his muggle music box with some slow songs. Harry had asked her to dance, and as the sun was setting, Harry pulled out a black velvet box and got down on one knee. He had opened the box and pulled out the ring. He then asked her to marry him.

Xiana had broken down crying tears of joy. Harry had never seen her so excited and happy. She had immediately accepted. They had set their wedding day for August 15. That night was going to be a full moon. Xiana had a lot of Celtic blood in her she wanted a Druid wedding. She wanted follow the _**Toriatal**_Ceremony. This was the most ancient wizard Celtic marriage ceremony. It went back thousands of years before Christianity. The witches of her family were Wicca's.

Harry had no problem with that. During his free study period, he had taken the time to research his family history. He had predominantly Celtic blood in him. One of his early ancestors had been one of the last Druid priests of the Scottish highlands before Christianity had come to England's shores. Xiana was a master of ancient lore and customs. He told her she could have anything she wanted. He explained his Celtic blood and agreed to build the ancient shrine.

Harry was going to build a brand new scaled down version of Stonehenge in polished black granite. The rest of the night they danced and kissed.

_**End Harry Flashback #2**_

Present day, Harry sat there still staring at the crackling flames in his fireplace. Xiana was still studying her book. His thoughts invariably went back to the preparation for their Druid wedding. Xiana had shown him the ritual and what was needed. He had been amazed at the beauty and serenity of the ritual. This ritual was laid down in antiquity. It is hardly practiced by witches and wizards anymore due to the blood ritual, which is involved. Due to the ministry idiots and the good old Wizened Maggots, they banned it because it resembled dark magic too much.

How in the name of Merlin can a ceremony celebrating love, life, and fulfillment be considered dark? Here was another reason he had to crush the ministry and establish laws that actually make sense. He needed a male confidant to speak as the voice of the North and South. He also needed a female confident to speak as the voice of the East and West. Bill and Fleur were going to speak as Druid and Druidess.

With this in mind, he made sure that Odin's Eye was set to take its maximum radius, so that he could work on the terrace and erect his Stonehenge. He first needed the find the terrace's magical nexus. This is where the highest concentration of magic is found. He had been surprised to find it halfway between the castle and the western cliff. It was particularly strong and Harry wondered about that. After finding the center, Harry began building the outer circle dolmens. The major causeway opening to the northeast embraces the direction of the most northerly risings of both moon and sun.

He began by transfiguring thirty highly polished black granite slabs called sarsens. He set them upright. Each stone was ten feet tall. They were aligned in a circle, with thirty lintels perched horizontally atop the sarsens in a continuous circle. He then built an inner circle composed of similar stones, also constructed in post-and-lintel fashion but set in a semi circular pattern.

In the center, he erected a 20-foot tall by 10-foot wide by 3-foot thick granite slab. The slab was polished to the highest sheen possible. The center slab itself tapered to a point facing the sky. Both faces of the slab were facing North and South. He had followed Xiana's instruction and engraved the major Northern and Southern constellations on their appropriate faces at their specific locations on the face.

He then cut a 10-foot high by 6-foot wide archway within the center slab. The base of the archway contained a 1 inch thick Naquadah plate with was inlaid in the granite floor. This had been his addition. If he was right, the center of the magical nexus upon which the center piece and the Naquadah plate was located would greatly amplify any land base magical energy which emanated from his ancestral land.

It's no wonder it had taken him a month to build the whole thing. Transfiguring the massive granite slab, polishing and then properly setting them in their correct order had been utterly draining. Thank god for his wand or he would have been in a coma. Speaking of wand, he had to finish Xiana's wand for their wedding day, as he needed her blood on a full moon to finish off the blood runes. She needed to do this as well for her wedding ring.

Her wedding ring was no ordinary ring. Harry had charmed it to be an indefinite portkey using his new neutrino apparition signature. The Naquadria would use her magical energy and amplify it to recharge her portkey. He had been able to layer 6 different coordinates into her ring. He had made the charms permanent. He had placed a summoning charm, an invisibility charm and a remove me not charms that would be keyed to her blood and magical signature only.

Anybody trying to remove her rings would suffer the equivalent of the crucio spell. With one word she could cause her ring to become invisible. He had put that one on for battle situations. If she were caught, they would never know that she had a portkey on her. She could either activate her portkey by voice or touch. She would be able to get out of any sticky situations.

Another very good day for him had been when he had brought Neville and Luna into his camp. He couldn't keep himself from smiling when remembered the shock on their faces when they had seen him. Neville almost wet himself in disbelief. He had a million questions. Harry had taken the time to properly Legilimens Neville and found out that Neville had no love loss for the ministry and thought that Dumbledore was somewhat off his rocker.

He also determined that Neville had full confidence in him and felt deep down that he would be instrumental in the defeat of Voldemort. Neville wanted to help him and secretly felt that he would love to have the chance to kill Bellatrix Lestrange. In further scanning his mind Harry found that Neville had a mental and power block put on his magic.

Why in the fuck did he have that in place, Harry thought. He asked him if he would help him find Luna because he needed to explain a lot of things to them and needed their help for a ceremony. He promised Neville a full explanation of everything. After all the damn prophecy could as easily been about Neville.

He told Neville to grab a hold of him and he apparated them both to Luna's house. Harry felt lucky that she was home. He was scared that she was still in Sweden hunting for the Crumpled-Horned-Snack or something like that. He also took the time to Legilimens Luna and found out her same distaste for the ministry as well as Hermione.

She had not appreciated her condescending remarks concerning her beliefs. She was very close to her father and apparently the ministry had given her dad a lot of grief over his articles supporting him. Deep down, he found out, that she really liked Neville, and deeply respected Harry for his abilities. She though he was a close friend of her. Well Harry thought she was not wrong.

Harry needed people he could trust. Although he found Luna to be slightly unorthodox, she was exceptionally intelligent and was solidly in his corner. Back at the DOM she had been one of the few to last to the end of the fight with the death eaters. Harry had an enormous respect for her bravery and intelligence.

He finally asked them if they minded following him, because he had a lot of things to explain to them. He asked them to take a wizard oath that they would not reveal any information that they were about to hear and see. He told them that he was taking them to the Potter ancestral home. They both took the oath and agreed to follow him. Harry created a portkey in front of them to their utter shock.

Within seconds they had landed near the gazebo on the western terrace of the castle. Both Neville and Luna had their mouths open and were doing a fine imitation of a Gobi fish. He called Winky and asked her she could bring some refreshment for them.

She curtseyed and told them she would be back in 5 minutes. True to her words, tea, cinnamon biscuits, and scones were served. Harry decided to start from the time he left Hogwarts and after 3 hours of straight talking finally worked his way up to his wedding.

Harry had provided proof when needed in his story. When he was done even Luna was shocked to the core. Neville looked like he wanted to murder the headmaster. Luna was royally pissed at his former best friends. In her books true friendship is a sacred bond. In her books they abused and took advantage of him to further their own agenda. To Luna that was a religious faux pas. Neville had been completely mesmerized by the training he had put himself through.

Neville asked him if he could show them some of the ancient dark magic. Harry had gladly agreed. He needed them as friends and allies so he was willing to do what it took to secure them. He decided to conjure 10 of his large scorpion. They both heard him hiss and suddenly ten giant scorpions materialized in front of them. Neville had gone as white as a sheet. Luna eyes were as big as biscuit plates.

Harry banished his scorpions and turned back to Neville. He apologized to Neville for scanning his mind, but he explained that he had to make sure about him before he divulged his secrets. Neville just waived it off saying he understood completely. Had he been versed in the mind arts, he would have done the same thing.

Finally, Harry explained to Neville the strange block that he had seen, and asked him if he wanted them removed. Harry explained that this could be one of the reasons why his magic had been affected. Neville had been surprised at first but now wanted them broken at all cost.

Harry took them to the castle passing by his newly built Stonehenge. Luna looked really intrigued by its design. They reached the castle and made their way to the library. Harry called Anubis to him. Both Luna and Neville were surprised to see the snake. Of course they knew that Harry was a parselmouth.

Harry told Neville to sit down. He told Anubis what he had found while scanning Neville's mind and told him about the blocks he found. Anubis agreed to act as his anchor if Harry pushed himself too far. Harry sat right in front of Neville and connected to his eyes. Within seconds, he was navigating through the recesses of Neville's mind until he found the block.

The process involved helping Neville use his core energy to erase the offending signature. He began by helping Neville find his core energy. With Harry's help he was able to charge his PONS with his core energy. Harry and Anubis helped enlarge his magical channels. This took nearly two hours. They had to go slow, or Neville would pass out on them. Eventually, the real battle began.

Inside Neville's mind, Harry explained to him to picture and ice pick and use it to stab the offending energy sphere. When Neville penetrated the sphere with his imaginary ice pick, they began channelling his core energy to the sphere. After an exhausting 20 minutes, the sphere finally let go and the block was released.

The block had been there to artificially reduce the size of his PONS. In the process his memories retention and magical power had been limited. With these blocks out of the way, Neville should have full access to his memories and his true magical powers. Neville had tears in his eyes and thanked Harry profusely.

Access to his memories he did. He now knew who had put the blocks on him. Neville although exhausted, was in a towering rage and hissed one word, "_**Dumbledore**_! Why did that bastard put these blocks on me?"

At that point, Harry decided to reveal the prophecy to both Luna and Neville. When he was done Luna had tears in her eyes and Neville had reached a life altering decision. Neville looked Harry in the eyes and begged him to allow him to join in. Luna did the same. He told them that he would be honored to have them on his side and that after August 21 if they wanted they could come and train with Harry until school starts. They both agreed to come.

He explained to them that he would teach them the mind arts as well as the dark arts. They both became excited. Finally he asked them if they could stay for supper because he wanted them to meet Xiana and he asked them if they wanted to be part of his wedding party.

Their jaws dropped and then Neville stood up, gave Harry a huge hug, and congratulated him. Luna did the same but gave him a big kiss on his cheek. Harry explained that they would be having an ancient Celtic Druid ceremony and explained to them what it entailed.

They were both excited and agreed to stand with him on his wedding day. With that said Harry stood up. He was exhausted after helping Neville, but it was worth it. They found Xiana, and Harry made the introductions. He told her that both Luna and Neville were fully aware of his status and that they were willing to join them against Voldemort and the Ministry.

They ate supper after which Harry gave them a tour of his ancestral home and then made a port key for them. He told them the date and time of the wedding and made them additional portkey. He told them to hide them carefully. On his wedding day, the portkey would send them to his trunk portkey room, just in case the order decided to somehow track them. Maybe he was getting paranoid but better safe than sorry. That day had been a very good day indeed.

Back from his thoughts, Harry asked his wife if she wanted a drink. She told him a nice brandy would go well just about now. Harry went to the bar and poured them both a Napoleon and came back to his seat. It was now 9:00 pm. He gave her the drink and gently kissed her on the lips. She looked up and smiled at him.

"I love you!" he said.

"Love you too beloved" she replied. He smiled and went back to his favourite reclining chair.

He turned around and looked back into the fire. He found his mind taking him to the day of the wedding.

_**August 15 Harry Flashback #3**_

Harry reflected back on the events of that day. He had managed to see Griphook and his lawyer Mr. Stenton earlier that morning. They had filled and processed his emancipation papers. Mr. Stenton had many contacts at the ministry and with a little bribe money from Harry things had been expedited that same day. His file had suddenly made the top of the pile. That afternoon, his approved papers had arrived via portkey to his trunk manor. He had previously told Griphook to file a copy in his vault and send him a copy to be kept at his castle.

To his surprise his OWL scores had been delivered to Griphook. "I suppose if the ministry Owl's can't find you, so they figure that you are going to stop at the bank some time in the future." Wow the ministry had use a thimble full of logic. Harry hoped that the event was recorder for posterity. Then he had spent the rest of the day going over the wedding ritual.

Dear Mr. Harry James Potter:

Enclosed are your scores from the June sittings of your Ordinary Wizarding Levels. The exams were graded impartially and all judges and examiners were tested with veritaserum to ensure no bias. This step is undertaken each year to guarantee reliability in our tests. We look forward to testing you again 2 years hence in your Newly Exhausting Wizarding Tests, good luck with your academic career at Hogwarts.

The grades available are as follows:

O- Outstanding

E- Exceeds Expectations

A- Acceptable

P- Poor

T- Terrible

N/A- didn't take the exam offered

An 'O' score is worth two owls, an 'E' or an 'A' is worth one owl. 'P' and 'T' scores are worth zero owls. The difference between an 'E' and an 'A' may be seen in the NEWT classes you are eligible to take. The difference between 'P' and 'T' is solely for you own knowledge, to see how close you came.

In addition, the highest score of the year in each subject will receive the Governor's Award, those recipients, along with the Top Ten overall scores, will be given a medal. If you received the highest score of the year in a particular subject, a score of 'O+' will be shown, as well as your name being on the list at the end. A designation of + shows the highest grade attained in over 400 years of Hogwarts history.

Scores for Harry James Potter, Gryffindor, are as follows:

Ancient Runes: N/A

Arithmancy: N/A

Astronomy: E

Care of Magical Creatures: O

Charms: O+

Defence Against the Dark Arts: O+ (with distinction)

Divination: A

Herbology: E

History of Magic: A

Muggle Studies: N/A

Potions: O

Transfiguration: O

You have received a total of 14 OWLs Mr. Potter, congratulations. The Top Ten students of the year are as follows:

1. Lisa Turpin, Ravenclaw

2. Harry Potter, Gryffindor

3. Hermione Granger, Gryffindor

4. Terry Boot, Ravenclaw

5. Blaise Zabini, Slytherin

6. Daphne Greengrass, Slytherin

7. Ernie Macmillan, Hufflepuff

8. Hannah Abbot, Hufflepuff

9. Michael O'Connell, Ravenclaw

10. Draco Malfoy, Slytherin.

The Governors' Awards go to the following students:

Ancient Runes: Blaise Zabini, Slytherin

Arithmancy: Lisa Turpin, Ravenclaw

Astronomy: Hannah Abbott, Hufflepuff

Care of Magical Creatures: Hannah Abbot, Hufflepuff

Charms: Harry Potter, Gryffindor

Defence Against the Dark Arts: Harry Potter, Gryffindor

Divination: Parvati Patil, Gryffindor

Herbology: Neville Longbottom, Gryffindor

History of Magic: Hermione Granger, Gryffindor

Muggle Studies: Sebastian Smith, Hufflepuff

Potions: Draco Malfoy, Slytherin

Transfiguration: Lisa Turpin, Ravenclaw

We congratulate these winners, on their outstanding efforts in academic excellence. You represent the best and brightest of your generation.

_**Griselda Marchbanks**_

_**Ministry of Magic**_

Xiana had given Harry her design for his wedding ring. She wanted it made with the same material as hers with the blood runes and all. The main difference was that the blood runes were inlaid with sapphire gems. The centerpiece of his ring was a flawless emerald inlaid with his family crest.

The crest was a black unicorn and a griffin. Both of them were made of black diamonds and inlaid in the emerald. He had the jeweller do the finer settings. By the time he had accomplished that task it was nearly 5:00 pm. He went to his trunk to pick up Neville and Luna. By 5:30 pm Xiana joined him and greeted Bill and Fleur. They all went back to the castle to get into their formal robes.

It was already 7:00 pm in the evening. The wedding party had already completed two practice rituals. Luna was wearing a beautiful sky blue robe with an emerald looking vines for border. She had the major southern constellations embroider on her robe.

Neville was wearing sand colored robe with the major Northern constellation embroider in silver. Bill representing the Druid of ceremony was wearing a beautiful gold robe embroider in silver with ancient Celtic rune symbols representing the elements. Fleur representing the Druidess was wearing a gorgeous silver robe embroider in gold with the same Celtic runes as Bill.

Bill as the Druid was going to preside from the outer circle from the North entrance of his newly built shrine. Fleur as the Druidess was going to preside the ceremony from the outer circle also, but on the South entrance of the shrine. Neville would stand at the inner circle Northern location facing south. He would speak for **North** and the **East**. Luna would also stand at the inner circle Southern location facing north. She would speak for **South** and the **West**.

Harry himself was wearing his emerald robe. The borders of his robe were embroidered in silver showing the Celtic symbols for the elements in a repeating pattern. The back of his robe was embroidered in gold showing the Northern constellations. The front of his robe was also embroidered in gold and showed the Southern constellation.

Xiana for her part was wearing a deep sapphire robe. The borders of her robe were embroidered in gold showing the Celtic symbols for the elements in a repeating pattern. The back of her robe was embroidered in silver showing the Southern constellations. The front of her robe was also embroidered in silver showing the Northern constellation.

Bill couldn't help thinking how beautiful they both looked. They radiated power and beauty. Harry's shrine in the original design of Stonehenge was perfect. Again he began loathing the ministry for taking away their birthright. The ancient wizarding marriage ceremony dated back millennia's. How dare they take away their heritage?

Bill now knew without a doubt that this was how he wanted to get married. He looked at Fleur, Luna, and Neville and he could tell from their faces that they had come to the same conclusion he had. He was brought back from his musing when he noticed Fleur light her wand. Bill called out the wedding party. It was now time for the marriage ceremony to begin.

The wedding party all walked to their positions. They all took out their wands and cast the torch spell. Then as one, they all intoned**, "Welcome!" **

{The Druid and Druidess then say, "Oh Great Spirit/Goddess we ask for your Blessing on this our ceremony."

**Druid:** Let the four directions be honored that power and radiance might enter our circle for the good of all beings.

**North:** With the blessing of the great bear of the starry heavens and the deep and fruitful earth, we call upon the powers of the North.

**South:** With the blessing of the great stag in the heat of the chase and the inner fire of the sun, we call upon the powers of the South.  
**West:** With the blessing of the salmon of wisdom dwelling within the sacred waters of the pool, we call upon the powers of the West.  
**East:** With the blessing of the hawk of dawn soaring in the clear pure air, we call upon the powers of the East.  
**Druidess:** May the harmony of our circle be complete.

**Druid:** We stand upon this Holy Earth and in the Face of Heaven to witness the Sacred Rite of Marriage between Harry and Xiana. Just as we come together as family and friends so we ask for the Greater Powers to be present here within our Circle. May this Sacred Union be filled with their Holy Presence.

(Pause)

By the power vested in me, I invoke the God of Love whose name is **Angus Mac Og** to be present in this Sacred Place. In his name is Love declared.

**Druidess:** By the power vested in me I invoke the Goddess of the Bright Flame whose name is **Brigid **to be present in this Sacred Place. In Her name is Peace declared.  
**Druid:** In the name of the Ancestors whose Traditions we honor,  
**Druidess:** In the name of those who gave us Life,  
**Both:** May we all unite in Love.  
**Druidess:** The joining together of Man and Woman in the Sacred Rite of Marriage brings together great forces from which may flow the seeds of future generations to be nurtured within the womb of Time. Within every Masculine nature lies the Feminine, within every Feminine nature lies the Masculine. The interplay of Masculine and Feminine forces, when flowing freely in a union based upon true Love finds many expressions. This union is truly Holy.

**Druid:** Goddess to God,  
**Druidess:** God to Goddess,

At this point in the ceremony, Neville disrobes Harry, and Luna disrobes Xiana. Harry and Xiana approach the center stone but stop at the entrance to the archway. For the first time since they have known each other, they get their first look at their naked bodies.

Xiana can't help feeling the lust building in her. She marvels at her future husband's sculpted body. He is so handsome. She is quite surprised at the size of his phallus. Her husband to be is fully equipped to say the least. She can't help lusting for him. She wants him inside her so bad.

Harry can barely keep his eyes off her body. Her body is perfect. Her breasts are perfectly round. Her hips are perfectly curved. He sees the small jet-black triangle of hair where her nether region is. Harry loves her beautifully sculpted legs. God he has to stop himself from thinking. He is starting to feel an erection coming on. He quickly started picturing Snape in a bikini. Oh god, that's disgusting. Better yet, Dudley and Uncle Vernon making love to each other, o.k. That's a bit much. I just want to stop my erection not get violently sick.

They both pull out of their thoughts to hear the Druid say.

**Druid:** Who walks the Path of the Moon to stand before Heaven and declare her Sacred Vows? (Xiana steps forward) Do you Xiana come to this place of your own free will?  
**Xiana:** I do.

**Druidess:** Who walks the Path of the Sun to stand upon this Holy Earth and declare his Sacred Vows? (Harry looks towards the Druidess) Do you Harry come to this place of your own free will?  
**Harry:** I do. (Both walk the paths of the sun and moon clockwise and anti-clockwise  
around the circle, returning to the East)  
**Druid:** Harry and Xiana you have walked the Circles of the Sun and Moon, will you now walk together the Circle of Time, traveling through the Elements and the Seasons?  
**Xiana & Harry:** We will. (Walk hand in hand to South)  
**South:** Will your love survive the harsh fires of change?  
**Xiana & Harry:** It will.  
**South:** Then accept the Blessing of the Element of Fire in this the place of summer. May your home be filled with warmth! (Walk together to West)  
**West:** Will your love survive the ebb and flow of feeling?  
**Xiana & Harry:** It will.  
**West:** Then accept the Blessing of the Element of Water in this the place of autumn. May your life together be filled with love! (Walk together to North)  
**North:** Will your love survive the times of stillness and restriction?  
**Xiana & Harry:** It will.  
**North:** Then accept the Blessing of the Element of Earth in this the place of winter. May your union be strong and fruitful. (Walk together to East)  
**East:** Will your love survive the clear light of Day?  
**Xiana & Harry:** It will.  
**East:** Then accept the Blessing of the Element of Air in this the Place of Spring. May your marriage be blessed by the Light of every new Dawn.  
**Druidess:** All things in Nature are circular - night becomes day, day becomes night and night becomes day again. The moon waxes and wanes and waxes again. There is spring, summer, autumn, winter, and then the spring returns. These things are part of the Great Mysteries. Harry & Xiana, do you bring your symbols of these Great Mysteries of Life?

**Xiana & Harry:** We do.  
**Druid:** Then before all present repeat these words.  
**Xiana (facing Harry and handing him the ring):** Accept in freedom this ring as a token of my vows. With it, I pledge my love, my strength, and my friendship. I bring thee joy now and forever. I vow upon this Holy Earth that through you I will honor all men.  
**Harry (facing Xiana and handing her the ring):** Accept in freedom this ring as a token of my vows. With it, I pledge my love, my strength, and my friendship. I bring thee joy now and forever. I vow in the face of Heaven that through you I will honor all women.  
**Xiana:** In the name of Brigid I bring you the warmth of my heart. (Xiana is handed a lighted taper by her best friend)

**Harry:** In the name of Aengus Mac Og I bring you the light of my love (Harry is handed a lighted taper by his best friend) they both light a single candle together. (This candle could be kept and relit at each anniversary)

**All:** May the warmth and the light of your union be blessed.  
**Druid:** Do you swear upon the Sword of Justice to keep sacred your vows?  
**Xiana & Harry:** We swear.  
**Druid:** Beneficent Spirits and Souls of our Ancestors, accept the union of your children. Help them, guide them, protect, and bless their home and the children born of their union. May their life together reflect the harmony of all life in its perfect union. May they work together in times of ease and times of hardship, knowing that they are truly blessed. From this time forth you walk together along Life's Path; may your way be blessed.

(Xiana and Harry walk together sun wise around the circle to be greeted by each of the participants, and then stand together west of center)  
**Druid:** It is the hour of recall. As the fire dies down let it be re-lit in your hearts. May your memories hold what the eye and ear have gained.  
**Druidess:** We thank the Powers of Love and Peace for their presence  
within this Sacred Place. Let us offer the words that unite all Druids.  
Grant, O Goddess, thy Protection

And in Protection, Strength  
And in Strength, Understanding  
And in Understanding, Knowledge  
And in Knowledge, The Knowledge of Justice  
And in the Knowledge of Justice, the Love of it  
And in the Love of it, The Love of all Existences  
And in the Love of all Existences, the Love of the Goddess and all  
Goodness.

**Druid:** Let the spirits of the Four Directions be thanked for their blessings.  
**East:** In the name of the hawk of dawn and of the element air, we thank the powers of the East.  
**West:** In the name of the salmon of wisdom and the element of water we thank the powers of the West.  
**South:** In the name of the great stag and of the element of fire, we thank the powers of the South.  
**North:** In the name of the great bear of the starry heavens and of the element of earth, we thank the powers of the North.

**Druid:** May the blessing of the Uncreated One, of her Daughter/his Son The Created Word and of the Spirit that is the Inspirer be always with us. May the world be filled with Harmony and Light.  
**Druidess:** Let us now form the Three Circles of Existence. (The married couple holds hands, forming the central circle. The participants in the outer circle and the horseshoe hold hands to form two further circles.)  
**All:** We swear by peace and love to stand  
Heart to heart and hand in hand  
Mark O Spirit and hear us now  
Confirming this our Sacred Vow.

**Druid:** This Sacred Rite of Marriage ends in peace, as in peace it began. Let us withdraw, holding peace and love in our hearts until we meet again.

The Druid unwinds the circle and exits with Druidess sun wise.

**Druidess:** Then seal your promise with a kiss.

Harry and Xiana go to the centerpiece. Harry entering from the north entrance and Xiana entering from the south entrance. They each take the ceremonial daggers and make a shallow slit across each wrist. They both walk until they are standing underneath the archway and clasp each other's writs so that their magical blood intermingles. They lean forward and kiss.

As their blood intermingles the whole center monument becomes engulfed in a deep bluish glow. St- Elmo's fire comes down from the sky and engulfs the centre granite slab. Also deep blinding white energy lines snake across the ground from the North, South, East, and West. Until they reach the naked couple.

Suddenly a golden dome forms around the couple and the image of a black Phoenix appears above the dome and everyone hears the most beautiful song they have ever heard. By this time, the golden dome is so bright that the remaining party can barely keep their eyes on it. Harry had a pretty good scientific theory as to why this happened. He would pursue it at a later date.

After a minute, the dome dissolves and the couple is seen kissing each other. After their kiss, they thank everyone. Before going back to the castle, Harry pulls out her ring and wand and asks her to coat the crystals with her blood. He does the same with his ring. They both intone the spell **"Ab- Invoco- Atis-Coniunctio-Ritus"** Mother night we invoke the power of blood.}

Earlier that afternoon, he made sure that they had fully charged the crystals with their wands and some Naquadria help for Xiana. Her new wand and ring like his were made of Naquadria. When they were done with the ring, wand, and blood runes, Harry cast a healing charm on their wrists.

They thanked everyone for coming and being naked, they apparated back to their bedroom. When they got into their room, it was filled with floating candles like Hogwarts great hall. Harry tuned towards her and gently picked her up. He carried her towards the bed and lowered himself with her onto their bed.

Xiana was in awe of the sheer desire she saw burning in Harry's eyes as he leaned down to kiss her. His mouth melded over hers hard and persuasive, parting her lips with the thrust of his tongue as he ravished her mouth with his. She felt herself weaken from the spiralling pleasure that poured through her and she clung her hands to his broad shoulders. He blanketed her body with his own.

His lips began to blaze a trail of wet kisses down her neck. His gentle hands roamed over her body, burning her where they touched. His palm closed over her naked breast, his fingers rubbed and teased her nipple. His other hand ran over her abdomen, stroking lower into the triangle of soft curling hair between her thighs.

Xiana cried out as his fingers gently massaged her most sensitive area. His mouth moved over her breast hot and wet, his tongue circled the hardened peak of her nipples. Her nails dug into his muscular back as she thrashed beneath him. He moved his hand away from her wet throbbing center, and Xiana moaned with the loss of it. His lips raked her body, moving lower down her stomach. His hands ran down her thighs as he shifted his weight between them. His lips soon followed as he ran hot kisses across the inside of her thigh. Xiana didn't realize what he was doing until it was too late.

"Oh, Harry!" Xiana cried at his daring and urged him on. All rational thought had left her. She was at her most primal. She felt his fingers part her labia and felt his tongue delved into the most sensitive part of her.

Her moans became choked gasp. Wicked, burning sensations coursed through her as he teased and provoked her with his lips and tongue. She had never in her life felt anything so intense. Her legs began to shake as she felt her climax build. Her fingers laced into his hair as she held him against her. Then, in a flash of blinding pleasure, he sent her over the edge.

Her back arched as she felt the jolting spasms rack her body. Her cries of pleasure echoed through the bedroom. She lay shuddering and gasping for breath, as tiny aftershocks shot through her. She wanted him inside her at all cost. Her primal urges sought full completion.

Harry crawled on top of her again, and her eyelids fluttered open. His own breathing was deep and ragged. His eyes lit up like emerald beacons as they burned into her. He leaned down to capture her lips in a demanding kiss and Xiana could taste herself on him as his tongue thrust into her mouth. He pulled away and let his head fall against her shoulder as he took a deep breath.

"I can't wait," he gasped desperately.

"I don't want you to," she sighed as she ran her hand down his hardened chest.

Xiana's eyes drifted shut as she felt his huge erection pressed against her.

"Open your eyes, Love," he commanded as he looked down at her.

Xiana's eyes flew open at his request and her breath caught in her chest when she saw the look of love and passion burning in Harry's eyes.

"I love you, now and for ever. Don't ever forget that," he whispered. Then, gently he slowly thrust one finger inside her, and she gasped. He took his time, her previous orgasm had made her wet. He could feel the heat from her entrance. He pulled out his fingers and at her desperate urging, he positioned himself at her entrance. He slowly penetrated her bit by bit, giving her time to adjust to his size. He stopped when he heard her gasp.

"I can stop if you want love?" That was the last thing she wanted to happen. She knew that she would feel a bit of pain. Most women did during their first time.

She cried "No!" She wrapped her legs around his waist and with one powerful pull made him thrust hard into her. She bit her lower lip, as she felt a sharp pain jab her. However, it faded quickly. She made sure that he was fully buried inside her. She felt so full and complete. She began to experience a pleasure she had longed for.

They both cried out at the sensation of their bodies joining. Xiana's eyes slammed shut as he filled her. Her arms locked around him, her fingers danced over his shoulders as the sweet torment of being with Harry flowed over her. His mouth found hers again as they moved together, unaware of anything, but each other. The world erased, the war disappeared, and there was no Death Eaters or Voldemort. They drifted away as they clung to each other.

They were swept up in the tempest of love and desire. His strokes were deep and gentle. Her moans were low and impassioned. Xiana's wrapped her legs around him as she urged him on. Her nails dug lightly into his back as she felt the deep throbbing of her release build. For the second that night, her back arched, her head fell back as the light burst around her in a torrent of blinding pleasure.

As her body convulsed around him, she felt the rhythmic pulsing of his release as his seed filled her. She heard him cry out her name and felt the tension leave his body. Xiana felt the shuddering that swept him. She felt the simple joy of being safe, content and in the arms of the man she loved above all else.

For a long time they lay there grasping for breath. Their damp bodies intertwined. Finally, Harry gently pulled out and pulled her with him. She lay across his chest listening to his heart beating violently. Neither one spoke for several minutes. The sheer intensity of what they had just shared far surpassed words. That night neither of them slept much as they made love three more times. She would have to cast some scourgify spells come morning she mused.

Finally, Harry fell into the most blissful sleep of his entire life. Xiana felt his love for her through their bond. She was now a married woman. She was now Xiana Potter. She felt blessed by the Gods. She let sleep finally claim her.

Unknown to them, both the Zabini and the Potter family tapestry had been updated with their names. Also late at night in a ministry magical records office, a married couples name was magically added to the ministry books. Of course, very rarely people ever audited these records and it would be quite a while before any ministry officials found out. That however would not be the case for one Michael and Blaze Zabini.

_**End Flash Back #3**_

Xiana finally put her book down and gave herself a stretch. She noticed her husband absorbed in his thoughts. She knew he would be confronting the Order of the Phoenix tomorrow and he was trying to plan for every contingency. She in turn would be going to meet her parents. She decided to confront them about what had happened to her and see if they could bury the hatchet.

This was going to be an interesting meeting to say the least. They would be upset that she had gotten married without their consent. She didn't care; as far as she was concerned this had been the best decision of her life. She loved Harry with all her strength. He was now part of her soul. She knew that if her father accepted him, then the rest of the family would follow.

She knew that they did not like being left out on any decisions regarding their children. However, she was an adult and she decided whom she married and what career to pursue. Her father might be a bit difficult, but her younger brother might prove even more.

He was apparently in Slytherin house and had not been too fond of Gryffindors. When he found out that his older sister was married to one, he might just flip out. She had to explain to them that Harry was not only Gryffindor, but also Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. He had all of these qualities in spade as most people did. She found it ridiculous that Hogwarts insisted on creating rivalry like that.

Xiana reflected on the entire events of these past 20 months, and concluded that she would not change a thing. She was happier than she had ever been. Harry had given her happiness that she never thought she would get. She was thankful to the gods for their blessings. She knew the years ahead were going to be filled with danger.

However she did not care, she had complete faith that her husband would prevail. They had agreed to never let Voldemort make any decisions that affected their lives. That is why they had both agreed that she would not take any birth control. What ever happens will happen. Life had to be lived and not put on hold. Harry had agreed.

Xiana got off her chair and told Harry she was going to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day and she wanted to have all her strength. She came over and gave Harry a passionate kiss, and left to go to bed. Harry told her he would be up in an hour or so. Harry sat back down in his chair and allowed his mind to wander over the events two days ago. He should feel bad for the Dursleys but he couldn't

_**Harry Flash Back #4 August 18**_

Harry apparated back to #4 privet drive to clear the remainder of his room, and get rid of all the charms he put on it. He also wanted to get rid of the blood vase. It was early afternoon and he apparated In the middle of his room. He looked at the place in utter loathing. He had never considered the place his home. He was sure glad that he would never have to live with those miserable bastards. He clearly heard the all too distinctive voice one Vernon Dursley bellowing about some Freak this. Harry decided to say his farewell.

He walked downstairs and as they saw him approach, his aunt Petunia dropped a plate on the kitchen floor, his uncle, and Dudley stood with their mouths open. Harry attributed their stares to his physical changes. Finally, his aunt found her voice and said.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to clear this place of all my possessions. I will am leaving for good and will never come back here." He said.

Petunia could not believe the changes in her nephew. His physical changes were striking. He was tall, well over six feet. He looked very muscular, and his hair went to the back of his back. His face was cold as ice though. Of course, she had not forgotten their last encounter and her face suddenly took on a calculating look. She said.

"Your Uncle would like to ask you something."

Harry looked at her for a couple of seconds and then walked towards his uncle and said.

"What would you like to talk about Vernon?"

Vernon also had that calculating look in his eyes. He was trying to be pleasant but Harry could tell that it was costing his uncle greatly. Finally, Vernon found his voice and said.

"You caught us early. We would like you to come back tomorrow for a farewell supper. You know to show that we have no hard feelings towards you." Whatever he thought his uncle wanted to talk about that was not it.

This was totally out of character for those morons. His Slytherin sense was on overdrive and looking closely at Vernon's face Harry noticed his eyes were narrowed just a fraction and it looked like he was fighting from showing him a maniacal grin. Finally, Harry decided to legilimens him.

He found himself shifting through his memories. God, his uncle was a sick bastard. He wondered if his aunt knew that he had regularly seen several prostitutes. He kept searching until he found Vernon and Petunia meeting with a man who was wearing a blue short sleeve shirt. However, that was not what had caught his attention. What interested Harry was the dark mark showing on the man's forearm?

Apparently his uncle had discreetly found out that a person working at Grunnings had a brother who was a wizard. After talking with the man, Vernon found out that his brother was looking for work. Vernon told him that he was going on vacation but gave him their vacation address and told him to tell his brother to meet him there. He told them that he had a business proposition that he might like. It turned out his brother was a death eater. They had reached an agreement and tomorrow was going to be the fulfillment of that agreement.

Apparently Vernon did not like being shown up by Freaks. He had not taken his beating by his nephew very well. Vernon wanted to take care of Harry permanently. Apparently, tomorrow's supposed dinner was to lure him into a trap. Ten death eaters were going to show up and stay under disguise just outside the house.

His uncle was going to give them the signal to come in after he had been drugged him. He planned to confuse his brains by drugging his tea. This would make it easier for them to best him. Harry carefully pulled out of his mind. He didn't know wither he should kill him on the spot or have him taken care off by other means.

Harry was fuming but he kept his face impassive. 'All right**, you fat fuck**,' Harry thought. 'You just couldn't leave it alone. Well you are the one going down piggy. You are going to find out the true meaning of poetic justice.' Finally, Harry found his voice and said.

"What time should I come?" He said in his most sincere voice.

"Err, 5:00 pm would be best, if you don't mind." His uncle answered. Harry agreed. He went back to his room, and finished clearing the rest of his things. He then made his way back to the castle and went to work formulating his attack plan.

He found Xiana and explained to her what he was planning on doing. She gave him some suggestion and a kiss. She told him to be careful. She was very good at maintaining a cool façade, but he knew that she would be worrying all afternoon.

For her part it took every once of control for her not go pay a visit to his muggle relations. She wanted to curse those bastards so badly that it hurt. How dare they attempt to murder her husband? She hoped that justice would be served tomorrow. If she knew her husband, and she did, then justice would indeed be served as a cold dish. A slightly evil grin broke on her face. She went to the kitchen to make supper.

The next day, Harry apparated just outside the park he used to go to. He was dressed in full battle gear. He had his basilisk vest, boots, and his full battle robe with his hood on. He was under his invisibility cloak. He took his watch and activated its map. He noticed a couple of muggles but no death eaters were in the park. He slowly made is way to Figg's house. Every 100 feet he activated his watch.

He finally made his way to an oak tree about 300 feet from the house and activated his watch again. Bingo! He saw 10 red wizards positioned around the house. Two were on the roof.

He checked to see what wards they had put on. He found an anti apparition ward, and a perimeter detection ward. Harry quickly cancelled the perimeter detection ward. He then added an anti portkey ward, an illusion, a silencing and a muggle repelling charm. He cast a disillusion charm on himself and took off his invisibility cloak. He then made his way to his former residence.

He needed to take care of the death eaters on the roof first. He looked at his watch and pinpointed their exact coordinates. They were all wearing invincibility cloaks, he deduced. He cast the following spell **Tar-Mer-Libiš**. This dark spell caused their heart to explode in their chest. They both flopped over without a sound. Well that takes care of two, he thought. The others were too well grouped and were covering each other's position. He figured there was no way he could take care of them one by one. Well plan B is more risky, but is much better for an adrenaline junky like he was.

For his plan to work he needed to keep one of those bastard alive. He cast accio blankets. All the blankets flew to him. Surprised by having their blankets ripped from them gave Harry the initiative. On the nearest two, he cast **Bi-Iz-Neturu** and watched as two of his victims melted before his eyes. Their skin first, followed by their muscles and then their bones turned to ash. This was truly one a gruesome psychological weapon. The other death eaters had seen this before from a pensive projection. They now knew whom they were dealing with and they began panicking.

In their confused state Harry took the initiative and layered his next spells on a group of four death eaters bunched up together. 'Geez,' Harry thought, 'where does Voldemort get these losers.' He caught them with **šukur-ùr-ki-a-nañ** and **Ñír-pa-šag-líl** he watched as Obsidian barbed spears shot up through their rectums and came out of their necks. They were lifted 20 feet in the air where they were all vivisected. Their arms came perpendicular to their bodies and their abdominal skin peeled off their bodies and attached itself to the underside of their arms. Blood and intestines came spilling below them. To add insult to injury Harry cast a spell that burned a scorpion tattoo on their forehead.

He had two more to deal with, but this time they were ready for him. One cast **Avada Kadavra** and the other cast a bone-crushing spell. They did it so that no matter which way he rolled he was going to be hit with a curse. He quickly rolled away from the AK and rigged up a shield but the bone-crushing spell hit at the same time the shield came up. Some of the spell managed to penetrate the shield and hit him in the ribs. His coat managed to also absorb some of the spell. The spell still managed to knock his breath away. He didn't break any bones, but he would have a nasty bruise.

Mental note to self he thought. No fancy shit until all hostiles taken care off. He conjured a metal wall to confuse them while he regained his breath. He quickly activated his watch to get an accurate reading on their position. He smiled. They had decided to split up. He took out his sword and apparated just behind one of the death eaters. Due to his apparition being silent, the death eater never heard him.

Harry took his sword and in one fluid motion, he severed the death eaters' head. He saw a curse coming towards him and this time had time to raise a proper shield. Nisi-šen-šen he cried. An emerald dome formed around Harry and absorbed the spell with ease. He now had a good fix on the last death eater. He waited for him to cast another curse and apparated ten feet to his current position and cast stupefy. The last death eater went down like a sack of rocks.

Harry walked over to him and cast _**incarcerous-metallum**_ thin metal like ropes bound the death eater like a holiday roast. Now it was time to take care of those fucking traitors. He approached the death eater and found that he had a portkey on. Good he thought this was going to make things easy. He then cast _**enervate**_ on his prisoner.

His plan involved planting memories of Vernon double-crossing the death eaters to the scorpion sorcerer. He made it out like Vernon planned to play the freaks against each other. He made the death eater believe he had discovered the muggles double crossing. Harry also made him believe that he had gotten away from the scorpion sorcerer and was able to find and incapacitate the muggle. He then planted the memory of him grabbing the muggle and using the portkey to get away just as he was being stupefied.

Harry then turned to the front window to see the Dursleys shaking like leaves. With a sneer, he apparated inside the living room and incarcerated all of them in ropes. He approached his uncle and lifter his hood.

By now, his uncle reeked of fear, and lost control of his bodily functions. He began uttering apologies, saying he was sorry. He tried to make him believe that it was the death eaters that made him do it. Finally, Harry had enough.

"**You liar!"** He screamed**. "You just couldn't leave it alone you fucking bastard**. I was more than willing to leave things as they were. I was going to leave you all for the rest of my life. Nevertheless, no, you felt you had to teach the freak a lesson. Well, pig man, you are about to meet the biggest freak of them all. When he is torturing you, I'll be watching from his eyes. Have a nice stay in hell you deserve everything you get. "

With that, he brutally assaulted his uncle's mind and wiped all of his original plans. He then planted memories of him wanting to double cross the death eaters from the beginning. He planted memories of him making fun of the death eaters, planted more memories of him taunting the freaks and showing them how much more superior muggles were to them. He then wiped his memories of their encounter, and cast a stupefy spell on him. All the while Petunia was screaming at him to stop.

He then looked at his aunt with pure venom. He first cast **Dira-Gudim** on her and forced her to relieve her worst loathing memories of herself. This dark spell actually made you loath yourself. He had to set the stage for his next spell, which he cast as **Ciris- Acerbus- Scortor**. This would cause his prim and proper aunt to become a whore. She would sell herself for money and drugs. She deserved everything she got he thought with hate in his eyes. He then cast a stupefy spell on her and dissolved the ropes.

He then went to his dear cousin and said. "You dear cousin were brought up by morons. However, that does not excuse you current behavior in tormenting people weaker than you. From now on every time you think about doing bad or mean acts. You will be in excruciating pain. The only way to stop it is to become a good person."

With that, he cast the following spell **Ñìri-Edakua-Diþ**. Every time you get nasty, you will suffer from severe arthritis pain. The nastier you get the more debilitating your disease will be. He went into his mind to make him understand the concept and erased all references to him. He put his hood back up and levitated his uncle to the unconscious death eater. He decided to pull the death eater's mask and found himself looking into the face of one Marcus Flint.

Harry decided to impregnate another death eater with his scorpion pod. He cast **zi-pà -ñír-tab** and had his scorpion sting him in the stomach. He made the scorpion impregnate a pod, and then banished it. With a cunning smile, Harry thought that Voldemort would be very surprised in their next encounter. While looking into Flints mind, he had found the portkey password. He made sure that his dear uncle was on top of Flint and stood a good 10 feet away. He cast his wand at the portkey and said **"Ambition."** The portkey activated and both Flint and his uncle were gone.

Now Harry decided to alert the bird club. He uttered **Ahak-Nakeb** and a giant scorpion appeared in the sky. Harry then layered five different spells and crumbled all of Dumbledore's wards. Harry made sure to stick around to see the last ward fail, and then apparated back to his home.

Unknown to Harry, a certain potions professor had been watching the scene with muggle binoculars. Severus Snape had seen the whole event unfold. To say that he was unnerved was an understatement to say the least. He had definitely witnessed the scorpion sorcerer at work. Why did he show up at Potter's? Did he somehow know Potter? How had they met? Where was Potter?

This sorcerer didn't appear to be for the light or the dark. What did he stand for? One thing for sure, a third front had opened up in this war and as far as he was concerned, all bets were off as to the outcome. Severus noticed members of the order streaming in and decided to join them. He had the distinct feeling that he was not going to get much sleep tonight.

Meanwhile back at his castle, Harry decided to go directly to his bedroom and practice his Occlumency. He wanted to open his link to Voldemort and watch the show unfold. He practiced clearing his mind and removing any negative emotion. It was imperative that he purge all of his emotions to prevent the Dark Lord from discovering him.

He laid his head on his pillow and closed his eyes. He opened up the walls and doors that he had closed a long time ago and checked the channel connection to make sure that it was still his magical signature disguised as Voldemort's linking their minds. He traveled down the tunnel until he reached the black orb. He slowly allowed himself to open the door and drifted down to the surface layer of his consciousness.

From that vantage point, he would be able to see through his eyes, but he was shallow enough not to be detected. This would be a good test of his Legilimency abilities he thought. As he expected, the Dark Lord was in a towering rage. He had lost nine of his ten death eaters to this scorpion sorcerer and been played by a muggle to top it off. Vernon had woken up and had spit in Voldemort's face, calling him freak.

The imbecile had assured himself a round of torture like no other. His torture had lasted for nearly 2 hours. At which point he had been forced to endure rounds of cruciatus by just about every death eater present. They had cut letters that spelled freak across his chest and back. They had gouged his eye and had cut off his ears. To add insult to injury before his end they had transfigured him into a pig and lopped his head off. Harry finally pulled out of the link, being careful not to arouse the Dark Lord's interest.

When he was back in his mind, he made sure that the door and walls in his mind were shut and brought to full strength. All Harry thought about was justice delivered. He fell back on his pillow sound asleep and never heard his wife undress and cuddle up next to him. Xiana woke him up the following morning with passionate lovemaking. She talked with him to make sure he was o.k. There was only on way to counter act that level of betrayal. She had prevented him from brooding by showing him how much she loved and cherished him.

That morning, people in Britain woke up to the reality of a new player in the ongoing struggle between Voldemort and the light forces. Harry picked up the _**Daily Prophet **_and read the following.

_**Daily Prophet Scorpion Sorcerer Dark or Light Wizard?**_

_Dear readers. Yesterday evening, saw the beginning of a new front, in the ongoing struggle with He-Who-Must-Not be named. Yesterday evening, an attack was planned and executed by the Dark Lord's forces on the Boy-Who-Lived. When we arrived at the scene, a most gruesome spectacle of dark magic awaited us. We saw death eaters who met their end with what must have been excruciating pain. Some had been impaled, while others had their hearts blown up, one even had his head loped off. _

_The only clue that was left of who was responsible for this carnage was a scorpion floating above the home of The-Boy-Who-Lived. The wizard who is dubbed the scorpion sorcerer is thought to be the one responsible for this brutal carnage. What was he doing at Potter's home? What is his connection to the boy- who-lived? It has come to our attention, from a secure source that the boy-who-lived has been missing from his home for at least three weeks if not more. Where is he? Dear readers there are many questions, but few answers. Rest assured that we at the daily prophet will use all of our significant resources to update you on the latest development in this ongoing saga ...etc._

_By your faithful: Rita Skeeter._

Well things were heating up, Harry thought.

_**End Harry Flash Back #4**_

Harry was brought back from his thoughts. He looked at his watch and noticed that it was 11:30 pm. He banished his glass and made his way to the bedroom. He was very careful not to make any noise. He stripped bare-naked and crawled into bed. He settled himself in a sitting position and began his relaxation techniques. After about ten minutes of sorting and filing his memories he nestled himself against Xiana and brought his arm to rest around her breast. She instinctively nestled herself against him in a spoon like fashion. Harry smiled and fell into a blissful sleep.

**August 21, Phoenix Burning.**

Xiana woke up with her head nestled into her husbands shoulder. She noticed that he was still asleep and was breathing deep slow breaths. He looks so peaceful, she thought. She must have looked at his handsome face for nearly ten minutes. She was memorizing every line and curve.

She realized that it had been a full 18 hours since her husband had made love to her. She needed him to be inside her. She simply could not get enough of her husband. She smiled and slowly started kissing his neck, and then she moved on to his nipples. By this time Harry was moaning with pleasure. She then worked her way to his phallus and took it in her mouth. She gently flicked her tongue around his most sensitive area.

Harry's eyes flicked open, and moaned as Xiana was driving him to new heights of pleasure. Harry found himself reciprocating the gesture. Before both of them knew they had made love twice in the span of an hour. They went back to sleep and ended waking four hours later. Harry opened his eyes and noticed it was 10:30 am. It was time to get up and prepare for a very taxing day. Xiana also woke up but decided to stay and laze around in bed.

Harry took a shower, and got dressed. He decided to not yet reveal to the old bastard that he was the scorpion sorcerer. He made sure to wear his basilisk vest, wand holsters, and boots. He decided on charcoal semi formal pants with a sort sleeve emerald colored acromantula silk shirt with a black Phoenix in the back. He made sure to wear both wand holster and his katana.

He cast parseltongue invisibility spells on his wand holsters and katana that even Mad Eye would not be able to detect. He had set his meeting for 2:00 pm, but he was going to arrive there at 1:00 pm to gather intelligence and see what surprise the bastard had set up for him. He looked at the date and realized that it was black scorpion earring day.

Xiana had asked him if she could have a replica of his earrings. She loved their assortment and their protection. Harry was more than pleased to make her a double set of his earrings. This way she would have two of each gem for everyday of the week. Shortly after their wedding he had given her a collection.

Meanwhile Xiana was watching her husband get dressed. When he was done getting dressed she noticed his choice of weapons. It looked like he was preparing for war. She was apprehensive about his meeting with Dumbledore. She had full confidence in her husband coming out of this meeting victorious, but she hated the emotional toll it took on him. She looked at the time and noticed that she had to prepare and face her day as well. She too would have a difficult meeting with her father. She got out of bed and suddenly there was a gold and bluish glow emanating from her abdomen. The glow lasted for about ten seconds and noticed that the air surrounding her abdomen was crackling.

Harry was putting his earring in his right ear when he heard the air crackling. He turned around and noticed a gold bluish glow around his wife's abdomen. He asked his wife if she was all right. She looked at him and gave him a smile and her left eyebrow was near her hairline. She said she was feeling better then she ever had. Harry just shrugged his shoulders and went down for breakfast.

Meanwhile, it took every ounce of control for Xiana not to jump and scream her joy to the world. She had a pretty good idea what that glow meant. The glow she experienced was a sure sign that a magically powerful child had been conceived. She was not certain for sure, but she would find out soon enough. In the meantime she would keep this her little secret until she was sure. Her next period was due in two weeks. She would know for sure then.

Harry due to the time decided to ask Dobby for a large brunch. The elves were more than happy to cook a large assortment of foods. Harry gorged himself and reviewed his plans. When he was done he noticed it was nearly 12:30 pm. His first step was to apparate to Grimmauld place and find Remus. He was going to reveal everything to Remus. He needed him to be solidly in his corner. Harry made sure that his had he had reduced his pensive. He was sure Remus was going to be surprised. Harry once again checked his watch and noticed it was now 12:45. Time to turn a chapter in his life. Today he was sure he was going to sever some ties forever.

Harry concentrated on the attic in #12 Grimmauld place. Within seconds he was standing in the attic. The first thing he noticed was the low light. The second thing he did was thank the gods for helping find a new way of apparating.

He let his eyes adjust to the low lighting. He noticed some muttering in the far left corner of the attic. He now remembered that voice. This was the vile little maggot of an elf that had betrayed his beloved godfather. Harry felt an utter hatred spring forth. He made sure that his boots had a silencing charm and slowly made his way to the sound of the disgusting little voice. When he was within ten feet of the creature, it turned around to face him. Somehow it had noticed him.

Meanwhile Kreacher was muttering his disdain of the filthy blood creatures infesting his beloved mistress home. He was putting away some clothes when he felt a magical presence come near him. He turned around and vaguely remembered the face now starring at him with utter loathing. Kreacher took stock of the individual and maliciously said.

"Ah! Poor Potter come looking for his blood traitor godfather but finds himself all alone." Kreacher cackled. Seeing no response coming from the human Kreacher said.

"Is poor baby Potter not able to speak?" Kreacher never saw a human move so fast. By the time he registered what was happening a blade was already moving toward his throat. The only sound that was heard in the attic was a **swoosh** and **thump. **Kreacher head rolled for about 6 feet before coming to a stop. Harry configured a canvas bag and put the head in it.

Harry sat down and let his magic get a read of the place. As expected he found Dumbledore's magical signature and noticed that several wards had been cast. An anti portkey and apparition wards had be set. Harry decided to leave those intact. He could punch through those with little difficulty. He then set his magic to locate a specific signature. He found it in his godfather's old room. He decided to remote cast a silencing charm on the room and apparated there.

Remus was lying in bed when he heard a very familiar voice call him. He immediately sat up with his wand in had and stood looking at the very person he had been seeking for almost a month. Remus did not know what to think at first, but decided to put his wand down and said.

"Harry! I have missed you, cub. Where have you been? You will never know the worry you have caused me." Remus finished deadpanned.

"I'm sorry Remus. What happened needed to be done. I have a full explanation for you. I need you to keep an open mind. Will you do this for me?" Harry replied.

"Cub, I would listen to anything you have to say. I just need to know that you are all right. After Sirius, you are the only thing keeping me from seeking the afterlife. I have nothing else to live for." Remus couldn't help the deep racking sobs that were assaulting him. He was finally able to look at his cub.

Seeing how distraught Remus was. Harry did the only thing he thought would help. He walked over and hugged Remus for all it was worth while saying.

"It's o.k. Remus. I'm here now and I'm not leaving you alone with these bastards. Marauders look after each other. I brought my pensive, so that you can be brought up to speed with what has been happening to me." Harry said.

Remus got a hold of himself and looked at Harry with care in his eyes. Harry took out his pensive and enlarged it. He then took a multitude of silver stands and put them in the pensieve. He told Remus to go in and see his memories. Remus was reticent but followed Harry's orders. After about 45 minutes Remus came back and had a big smile on his face. The pride he had in his cub was beyond measuring. For the first time in three months, he finally felt a weight come off his shoulders. He turned to Harry and said.

"Damn Cub! Busy is an understatement in your case. God if they only knew. Don't worry, you secret is safe with me. I can't tell you how proud I am of you. Both James and Lily would be ecstatic at your accomplishments. I just want to let you know that I am with you the whole way. I will officially be quitting the order tonight. By the way congratulations on your new married status. "

"When we are done here, you are coming with me to your real home Remus." Harry said.

Remus was smiling and couldn't wait to get the hell out of here. Inside he was so close to loosing it. The shear betrayal that the headmaster had engineered was beyond comprehension. He was going to need every ounce of discipline to keep from losing complete control of his wolf side.

"You should go down and seat with the rest of the Order. I'll be down at the appointed time. I can't guarantee that there won't be some fireworks." Harry said.

"That's all right cub, this place needs a real brouhaha anyway." Remus replied.

Remus left and went to join the rest of the order. Harry took back his memories and preshrunk his pensive. He waited about 15 minutes and silently made his way down.

As he was nearing the kitchen, he distinctly heard Ron voice.

"Just, like I said. He is too much of a coward to show his face here today!" Ron spat.

It took every ounce of self-control not to leap from his chair and rip the little cretin's head out. Finally Bill looked at his brother with a sneer and said.

"He'll show up. Just show some patience for once."

It was Molly Weasley who stood up for Ron. She quickly replied.

"Bill! Show some loyalty to your brother. He's not too far wrong you know. We have been worried for him all summer, and he didn't bother to show up once and let us know that he is all right. What kind of a friend does that make him?"

Bill looked at Fleur and decided to keep his mouth shut. He had to maintain the illusion that he was still part of these helpless bastards.

Hermione agreed with Molly and said, "We have always stood with him, and this is how he repays us". At this point members of the order were getting their two cents in. Harry decided to make his entrance.

Harry opened the door and every member of the order looked towards him and their mouths dropped. Everyone was getting a different look at the boy who lived. Everyone acknowledged how different he looked. He looked like he had power surrounded him. He seemed to possess an air of confidence that was missing not too long ago. Many members of the Order narrowed their eyes at the transformed Harry Potter looking at them.

Harry took their silence and walked with an almost cat like gait. He could smell the fear in the air. He noticed that most of the Order was there: McGonagall, Jones, Shaklebolt, Tonks, Snape, the twins, Molly, Arthur, his former best friends, Mad Eye, and Hannah Abbott's aunt. There were a lot of other people he had never met before. The twins gave him a slight shake of their head. Harry returned it.

The headmaster himself had a calculating air in his eyes, as if trying to assess this new Harry. One thing for sure, everyone were surprised by his looks. Harry raked his eyes over his former friends and sneered at them, before settling his gaze on his true target. Albus Dumbledore, the so-called mighty wizard of the light. He gave him a look and narrowed his eyes at him.

Harry flipped his wand in his hand and conjured himself a beautiful muggle reclining chair. Every eyebrow from the Order except for Bill, Fleur, and Remus shot up at this clear display of power. He fixed them all with a glare and noticed one of his intended targets sitting in a dark corner just like a bug. He stood sitting there with a sneer on his face. Harry recognized him immediately as one Severus Snape, miserable potions master and bastard first class.

Finally Snape couldn't help himself, "Well, well, well. Look who graces us on this fine afternoon - The golden boy wonder himself. What happened, Potter? Got lost looking for your miserable mutt and finally realized that he is gone, and finally found your way home? "

Harry clearly heard Ron snicker at Snape's comment. Harry immediately felt a building volcanic rage ready to erupt. He decided to unleash his dementor on them. By now his eyes were glowing a bright emerald green, and his body became charged with his magical aura.

Everyone started to feel the droop in temperature, and they began to experience their worse memories. Within seconds of Snape's words, Harry countered.

"Headmaster, I strongly suggest you keep your lap dog on a very short leash this year if you hope to keep your potions master. Otherwise I'll be forced to terminate that pile of excrement before school starts."

The headmaster was about to respond when Hermione Granger said. "What happened to you Harry? You have become so cold, is that how you treat your teachers and best friends now?"

"I don't have any best friends Ganger. The people whom I thought were my best friends betrayed me to that bastard sitting at the end of the table. How dare you call yourself my friends when you have been spying and lying to me all year long? You have been reporting my every move to headmaster all year long. Didn't think I would find out, did you? You should tell your idiot boyfriend to cast a silencing charm when you are in public. Yeah it was real nice finding out that my supposed friends have been fucking me over since last summer. I hope you enjoy being part of your bird club"

By now, both she and Ron's faces had blanched considerably and Harry could tell that they were guilty. Granger had the grace to blush crimson. Hermione tried to recover by saying.

"Harry, we only did it because we thought we were doing what was best for you."

"**Bullshit!** You did it to advance yourself and nothing more. The headmaster offered you some crumbs and you fell into his trap and prostituted yourself for some power and prestige." Harry looked at Ron directly in the eyes and continued.

"I can expect this from Ron; after all he has been showing his jealous steak since 4th year. Now that I can see with my eyes fully open, it was only a matter of time before he betrayed me. I expected a lot more from you. I guess in the end it was to much to have miss righteous, know it all, Dumbledore can't make a mistake, free every house elf, needle me to pieces, stick with her friends. I suppose a good thing to come out of this is you won't be spying on me anymore and telling the Head-Master Manipulator what I am doing." By now Ron's face was ready to explode and Hermione was crying her eyes out. How dare that fucking bitch cry in front of me, when she is the one who fucked me over!

The headmaster was analyzing his young pawn trying to figure out how to salvage this slipup. Dumbledore was finding it hard to judge this new Harry. He was reacting and thinking like a Slytherin. He had to regain control of Harry at all costs. Finally he said.

"Harry, please forgive them. It's true I did ask them to spy on you but it was only in your best interest. You don't know how insidious Voldemort can be. You have a serious independent streak in you and due to your connection with Voldemort I needed to know what was really going on. Information is key to winning this war Harry. As you well know you are one of the key players in this war."

Whatever reaction the headmaster was expecting Harry, laughing hysterically was not it. Finally to everyone's dismay he got control of himself and bellowed.

"**YOU FUCKING LIAR!**" McGonagall was the first to stand up and said.

"Mr. Potter, you will show the headmaster some respect or so help me god on your first day back, you will be given a months detention."

Harry whipped his head around and looked at her directly in the eyes and narrowed his own eye and said, "Gee professor, it's truly amazing how you can stick for the dinosaur over there and when we come to you for help you turn a blind eye to us. The grease ball has been treating Gryffindors like shit for the last five years that I have been in that school and you have not lifted a finger to stand up to him. He has shown blatant favoritism to his house and you still do nothing. You are either blind to what is going on, or the headmaster has cowed you so much that you have become an ineffective head of house." He spat.

Minerva sat back down and gaped at Harry like a fish out of water. She couldn't utter a sound. Harry turned back to the headmaster and said out loud.

"How many of you know why you have been guarding me for the last two summers? What, no one dared to question him as to why you were guarding a lone wizard living with his muggle relatives in the middle of the most boring neighbourhood for the duration of the summer?" Harry looked at everyone in turn and continued.

"You must all be more stupid than I thought or you have been masterfully played by the puppet master all this time." How about I let you know why you have been guarding for this past summer.

By this time the headmaster face was blanching and he was starting to panic. This foolish boy was about to destroy 17 years of hard work. Finally he said "Harry I forbid you to tell them. You don't know what you are doing my boy. You could well cause Voldemort to win this war if you give them this information."

Harry's eyes had gone as cold as Antarctic ice. He answered back, "What's wrong Dumbledore don't you trust your bird club?"

"Harry, I must insist that you don't"

"You have NO RIGHT to insist! You are not my guardian, despite how much you want to control your secret weapon!" Harry spat.

"Harry, I know you're angry," Dumbledore tried.

"You don't know anything about me, you lying, stealing kaniving hypocrite." Harry shot back.

Dumbledore was getting angry by now "You are making a mistake Harry!"

"Well then I'll make my own mistakes! This is my life to live!" Harry shot back, digging into his power.

"I won't let you lock me away again! Fuck you, and fuck your war. I'll fight because if I don't, the real people I care about will die! Because you and your sweet talking, candy ass, secret keeping Order won't help me! You had god damn 15 years to prepare me for my destiny and you did shit. You never had any faith in me. Fuck, old man, you spent the entire summer training a dimwit who couldn't fight his way out of a candy rapper and you keep me locked up in my own private little kind of logic is that for the one who is destined to bring down Voldemort?"

Molly spoke up, "Albus what is he talking about?"

Harry had enough, "_**The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those….etc**_" When he was done everyone was shocked. Even Snape's sneer had disappeared.

The headmaster face was as white as a sheet and he fell back in his chair. He had to do something real quick; he was losing the battle of wits.

"We're here for you now Harry." Dumbledore said.

"BULLSHIT! YOU WERE GOING TO LOCK ME AWAY FOR THE SUMMER! Thought if you kept me in the hell-hole I'd be a bit more cooperative once you offered me release huh? You've been playing this card from the beginning haven't you? My parents made the biggest mistake of their lives trusting you. You probably wanted her out the way. A mother would have been far to cumbersome to deal with, wouldn't it? It's far easier controlling your weapon when it's only you pulling the strings." Everyone was looking at Harry in complete shock. Harry decided to continue.

Dumbledore decided to regain control of the situation. "Harry, I don't know who you have been with this summer, but it is obvious that you have been led astray," with that he whipped his wand and cast **Legilimens** - BIG MISTAKE on his part.

That move had simply put Harry over the edge. He felt Dumbledore trying to get beyond his walls, but he knew that he would not succeed. This was his chance to get into the headmaster's head. He brought forth his dementor aura and concentrated all of his power on breaking Dumbledore's mind. He brought forth his viral attack squad and prepared to push a Trojan into his mind.

Within minutes, Dumbledore was locked fighting the effects of a simulated Dementor. Harry noticed his lapse in concentration and send out a sensor. He was searching for an easy way to penetrate his inner layers. He found it by travelling the same path that Dumbledore's worse memories were surfacing from. Once inside he planted his in a deep folder. He would get back to it later when he needed too.

He then began searching for all information relating to him. It didn't take long, since they had been discussing him; most of his thoughts concerning him were close to the surface. Bingo! He found it. '**YOU FUCKING DEMENTED SONAVABITCH!** So I'm your sacrificial lamb, am I? You got something else coming old man. Now let's see about mind fucking you so that you will remember this little confrontation for a very long time.'

'You are never going to attack me like this old man.' Harry began pouring his raw core energy into Dumbledore's mind. He was now attacking the headmaster on two fronts. He emulated Dementors and pushing his core energy into his mind. He was just tainting his mind with core energy.

He wasn't leaving any memories there. However Harry remembered how painful it had been to clean Voldemort's core energy from his mind. Harry was planting twice as much. He made sure not to leave any soul essence behind. When he was done, he began pulling out of his mind.

To everyone on the outside it looked like a mind war had been declared. Snape was almost smiling, until he noticed Dumbledore crying out in agony. With a sudden jolt the headmaster found himself on his knees, with his hands pressing on the side of his head. Dumbledore was in sheer agony. Snape was about to curse Harry when suddenly Harry stood up and was back in his mind. Harry was breathing hard, but his years of Occlumency training and his innovations in the mind arts had paid off in spades.

Harry said, "So you want to know what this little contest was about. It was about the headmaster forcing his will on me again. _**However I completely mind fucked him**_! In the process I found out why he never bothered to train me." No one said anything so he continued.

"**I WAS GOING TO BE HIS SACRIFICIAL LAMB! **He was keeping me safe long enough for my link to Voldemort to grow beyond repair. That way when the final conflict came no matter who won the final duel, our souls would be so intertwined that we would both die."

Half the Order were now on their feet sputtering nonsense. Some seemed to look at the headmaster with loathing, others didn't believe a word Harry said. Seeing no rebutal, Harry decided to continue.

"The headmaster never had any trust in me. He thought that Voldemort had too much experience for me to catch up. He didn't believe that I could learn enough to be a match for him even though I faced him five times already. "Harry couldn't help himself he had tears running down his face.

He turned to Snape and bellowed. "Snape! Next time you are licking snake face's boots. You can tell him that he will never regain his remaining memories. His last 35 percent belong to me. **He can no longer reach me and the link has been severed for ever." **He spat.

By this time Dumbledore was regaining some of his faculties. Where did the little brat learn to do this, he thought. In 150 years of experience he had never seen a mind occluded like his. He didn't even get close to his wall, which was formidable to begin with. God damn it this was turning out to be one of the worse nights of his life.

He had lost complete control of his weapon, and now the whole order was aware of his ultimate plans. The Order of the Phoenix was burning tonight, he concluded. He knew he would loose some members tonight. He had no clue how to repair the damage.

Harry decided that proof was now needed to split the order. He took out his parents' letter as well as his Gringotts bank records of withdrawals and made copies for everyone. He wanted to show them how Dumbledore had gone against his parents wishes and had manipulated his accounts and stolen from the Potter family vault.

He then pulled out his emancipation papers and made a copy for Dumbledore. Finally he threw his lawsuit papers at Dumbledore and said, "If you want out of this court trial then you will from now on leave me alone. You will no longer interfere in my life. I am severing my ties to you and your bird club. I do not want to speak to you, or see you concerning any other matters. I will go to my chosen classes but that is it. I will not be sleeping in the dorms. I will travel back and forth to Hogwarts everyday. I sure as hell cannot trust you keep me safe so I will do it myself. See you September 1."

"Hermione, you might want to go to St. Mungo's to check your mind for lots of Big compulsions. You will find yourself interested. Next time I see you, I will check your mind first. Everyone else, do the same. Weasley, don't bother."

He was about to leave and remembered his course schedule. He took it out and threw it at McGonagall. The headmaster then said.

"I'm sorry Harry, but I cannot let you leave. There are anti apparition and anti-portkey charms to prevent you from leaving."

"Why do I bother trying to save the idiots of the wizarding world? I have learned a great deal this summer Dumbledore and you see the funny thing about limits when it comes to magic is entirely artificial. I'll be seeing you."

Harry nodded at Remus who stood up and told Dumbledore that he was quitting the Order. Several people followed and leftalso. Remus came over and Harry told him to grab his left arm. Harry picked his canvas bag and reached in and pulled Kreacher head. Many people screamed and Harry threw his head on the kitchen table. He then said.

"**This is what happens to traitors who cross me!" **

Without warning and no sound, Harry apparated himself and Remus out of the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix to the shock of everyone else present.


	12. Chapter 11 Hogwarts and Scorpion Army

**Chapter 11 "Hogwarts and The Scorpion Army"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

_**That Evening at 12 Grimmauld Place**_

Everyone but the aurors screamed and scrambled from the table as Kreacher's head finished rolling. Molly Weasley was the first to speak.

"Albus, what is the meaning of this? What happened to Harry? Are all of his allegations true?" Albus who by now was sitting in his chair trying to keep his pounding headache at bay, answered.

"I don't know what has happened to Harry. With the evidence that we have gathered at his home in Privet drive, Harry has been very busy this summer. How he came about the changes we have just witnessed, I cannot say. It appears Harry has fooled all of us this summer!" Still seething with anger, Alastor spoke next.

"Why are you so surprised by his behavior? It seems that the boy has plenty of reasons to be pissed at us, but especially you, Albus. I thought he was remarkably restrained, if it were me finding out this level of betrayal, I would have left a corpse behind." He was looking at Albus while talking, and everyone noticed Dumbledore cast his eyes downwards.

Dumbledore noticed that no one was speaking. He was sure that in his long life, he had lived through worse nights, however none came to mind. There was no other way now; he needed to explain his rationale and why he made those decisions so long ago. If there was any chance of salvaging the Order, this was the only way. He knew that he would lose people tonight. He had taken far too many shortcuts to make some of the more law-abiding members comfortable with his actions. He finally found his voice and said.

"I know that some of you are in shock tonight. Before explaining everything regarding Harry, you should know that what was done was for the greater good of wizard kind. That has always been the driving force in all the decisions regarding Harry. Second, you need to remember that we are only human, including me. No one on this earth is infallible. So it began 17 years ago…etc. Finally, it appears that fates have decided to parry my plans."

After Dumbledore was finished with his explanation, Minerva found her voice. "Albus, lord knows that I have always had great faith in your decisions. However, I feel that you have not been seeking enough council where Harry enters the picture. I heard your explanations regarding his experience and training time. However, you never gave him a chance. How many 12 year olds do you know who have slain a 60-foot Basilisk and lived to tell the tale?" Minerva was not only addressing the headmaster but the rest of the Order as well. She continued

"Have you seen his OWL results? He is second overall in academics and won two governor's medals. How can you claim that he was not smart enough to train?" Hermione was pouting, and Ron looked even more jealous than he had ever been. Dumbledore looked at the room and said.

"I simply based my decisions on his earlier years Minerva. I suppose I should have waited for everyone's OWL's before deciding on who to train, but what is done is done. With your help, I need to figure out a way to bring Harry back into the fold. It is obvious now that the evidence is in, that he needs to be trained hard and fast. I welcome any suggestions on how to accomplish this goal"

Everyone just stared and was lost in their own thoughts. Severus Snape broke the silence. "That little shit has obviously lied and hoodwinked everyone here. He forged the documents and made up a prophecy. Just like his father, he is trying to catch the limelight once again. What he needs is not training but a good whipping." He spat. Everyone was looking at him with their mouths opened. Moody answered first.

"Yah Snape, He was just so bored all summer, that for shits and giggles, he decided to lop the head of that slimy little traitor responsible for Sirius death. If I were you Snape, I would do everything in my power to stay the hell away from young Potter. If you go out of your way to piss him off, we might find you head on a pike at the gates of Hogwarts" he said with a malicious smile.

"Gee, those threats mean so much coming from a paranoid psychopath whose time as an Auror has long past." Snape spat.

For a man of his age, Moody moved with incredible speed and before anyone moved, Moody had his wand underneath Snape's chin and said, "Want to see what a has-been Auror can do death eater?" Every Auror there had their wands pointed at Snape.

"Enough!" Dumbledore bellowed. "We are in real danger of splitting our forces here, we need to pull together, or we are doomed. The enemy is Voldemort and not we."

Both Snape and Moody were eyeing each other. With a growl, Moody tucked his wand back in his holster and went back to his seat. Unknown to both men, Bill had been watching Moody with a calculating eye.

All this time Bill kept quiet. He found it particularly difficult to stay calm and not curse the old bastard for all it's worth. Bill had already seen the evidence showing the extent of Dumbledore's betrayal, however tonight Harry fully disclosed what the headmaster's plans were and he confirmed it with his explanation, all the while stating it was for the good of the wizarding world.

If Dumbledore thought that he could bring Harry back into the fold, he was highly delusional. Bill looked subtly at Fleur and Charlie, and they both read the same thing. They had made their decisions. They were solidly in Harry's camp. Tonight was more of the same from the old man. Dumbledore was just trying to salvage his leadership and salvage his blunders. Just as he had agreed with Harry, he would remain in the Order and gather information for their side.

Bill firmly believed in Harry's vision for wizard kind. For far too long, the status quo has existed and so many magical races had taken the brunt of all this unnecessary prejudice. His future wife was part Veela, and her ancestry had been relentlessly persecuted. He wanted a better wizarding world for his wife and future children. For this to happen Voldemort had to go, the House of Lords had to be disbanded, and the Wizengamot had to be reformed along with the ministry. After this meeting Fleur, Charlie and him were going to his flat for a full debrief. Charlie was going to start training with Harry during the last week of August.

His biggest heartache was a split within his family. Bill had already noticed a polarization in the camps. His mother and father would never break away from Dumbledore. Bill did not understand why they could not see through the old man. He had to find out where the twins stood in all of this. They had not said anything as of yet, but owing to their nature, they would not be too happy with the old man. They owed Harry a lot, for what he had done for them. Bill had no doubt that when the chips fell, they would not stand with Dumbledore.

Bill was brought from his thoughts when he heard Amelia Bones say, "Dumbledore, I am officially giving you my resignation from the Order of the Phoenix. We have laws in our society for a reason. You skirted many of our most sacred laws in order to keep control of a boy who did not deserve these manipulations at your hands in the name of a prophecy made by one of the biggest charlatans in the business no less. Even if your intentions were to safeguard wizard kind, the ends do not always justify the means Dumbledore."

With that, she stood and left. Hestia Jones, Oscar McGregor, Loraine Tuttle, and Emery Stevenson followed her. Dumbledore watched them go. Before they could leave Dumbledore said, "I'm sorry you feel this way. I hope that you reconsider. Your skills and talents are invaluable to the light side. Please do not make an old man's mistakes stop you from making a stand for the light side."

Amelia replied, "Don't worry Dumbledore; we have no intentions of leaving the fight. We just need to find a more qualified leader." With that, they all apparated from #12 Grimmauld place. Molly Weasley was the first to speak

"How dare they make such accusations? There is no one more qualified then you Albus, what ever is wrong with Harry, we will fix it." She said with absolute conviction. Bill just rolled his eyes and couldn't believe his mothers naïveté.

Dumbledore replied, "Thank you for your support Molly. Outside of my predicament with Harry, has anyone gathered more information concerning this scorpion sorcerer and why was he at the Dursleys defending Harry? Severus, you were an eyewitness. What can you tell us?"

Severus looked at everyone with a sneer on his face and finally looked at Dumbledore," I was not able to recognize who he is headmaster. His was wearing a battle cloak with a hood that pretty much covered his face. I could not discern any facial features. As to his fighting abilities, that is another story. The battle happened so quickly, it was hard to follow. However, I can honestly say that he is utterly ruthless in his dealings with death eaters so far. He is using dark magic that I have never seen or heard of before. It is incredibly powerful, that much is certain. He also seems to move with Vampire like speed. I have never seen a wizard move with such speed in battle. Finally, he is deadly with a sword. I noticed he was using a Japanese katana sword. He seems well versed in martial arts. As to his links with the former golden boy, only Potter can answer that."

Dumbledore thought about Severus' words for a minute and replied, "What does Voldemort think about the scorpion sorcerer?"

Snape's face contorted as if he was being put under the cruciatus and seemed to recall some memories. After a minute Snape snapped out of his thoughts and said, "The Dark Lord is extremely edgy. I believe that he is afraid or this scorpion sorcerer. The Dark Lord is a master in the dark arts. His knowledge is beyond anything I have ever seen, and yet he does not recognize this scorpion's dark magic. He has already lost close to thirty of his servants to this scorpion sorcerer. My best guess is that he is afraid of him." Everyone looked quite surprised at this.

Within his own thoughts, Severus felt the Gods had blessed him two days ago. Had it not been for the scorpion sorcerer, and Potter's uncle, he might have been killed. They ended up providing him a viable excuse for his failure to get Potter. Two cruciatuses had been his punishment. Not pleasant, but certainly better than death.

Moody was again the first one to speak out, "At least it's nice to see someone taking out the trash. He has done more in the span of three weeks then our entire order and the ministry combined. I say pin a medal on his chest, and hire him as a bounty hunter. One thing for sure, I would give my entire pension to see snake face and the scorpion go toe to toe. I'll wager snake face would be in a world of pain. Either way, the longer this goes on, the harder a time Voldemort will have recruiting death eaters." Moody had a huge grin on his face fantasizing about that very possibility.

Tonks replied, "I concur with Moody, the scorpion has only been targeting death eaters and he seems quite fond of eliminating them. Either way he is helping our cause."

Albus frowned at the comments issuing from his ranks and finally said, "What if this scorpion is just another Dark Lord wanting to eliminate the competition." everyone turned towards Dumbledore, except Bill, Fleur and Charlie who just rolled their eyes.

Hermione finally decided to speak up and replied, "It would seem that until we can make contact or find out through third party who this scorpion sorcerer is, then anything we come up with is sheer speculation with no facts to back up anything. We could better spend our time concentrating on what we can control or influence. Could we perhaps discuss the parting words of Harry?"

Dumbledore turned his head to Hermione and his twinkle was somewhat back, even though the pounding in his head was still not letting up by much. He finally decided to adjourn the meeting until they could all sleep and get a better perspective. The evening had been quite trying. Dumbledore finally spoke out.

"Miss Granger has a valid point; however I do not think that we will achieve anything else tonight. I believe that some reflection is needed to properly establish a workable answer. I suggest that we adjourn this meeting and meet in one week's time. If there are no more questions, then I call this meeting over."

At this point Bill had narrowed his eyes, and though about what Dumbledore said. It wouldn't matter what they planned. Harry was never going to forgive them. He looked up at Fleur and Charlie and slightly gave them a nod of his head. They knew what it meant. With this, everyone began to filter out of the kitchen.

_**Early that Morning at Zabini Manor**_

Blaise looked at his watch and noticed it was only 8:30 am. For some reason, he woke up early this morning and decided to do some light reading, and carry on planning for his sixth year. He made his way to the spacious living room and sat in his favorite chair. He was looking at the blue fire in the fireplace and started thinking about the events of his 5th year.

Umbridge and company had left a real sour taste in his mouth. Stupid Malfoy, how that boy ever was sorted into Slytherin is beyond him. The boy prances around like he's fucking Alexander the great, but has no discernible cunning or magical talents to support his bragging.

Slytherin are ambitious, calculating, and cunning. Plans within plans brought about by subtle yet ruthless manipulations are the key traits that true scions of Slytherin house aspire to master. Those are supposed to be their leading traits, but Malfoy seems to have inherited none of it. The boy telegraphs his plans as if he was holding a gigantic neon sign. Working in the shadows seems to have eluded him. He consistently goes out of his way to confront Potter and the Gryffindors. Bloody git ends up losing almost every time.

Slytherin house definitely got the end of the stick when it comes to the talent pool for his year. Theo Nott is the exception. Let's see we have Crabbe and Goyle, who share at best two neurons between them. Anyone whose vocabulary consists mainly of grunts is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Then we have Parkinson and Bullstrode who follow Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle like a bunch of sycophants. Blaise couldn't imagine being in an arranged marriage with either one of them. He would have to take the sleeping draught potion, and be fully horizontal to shag either one of them. Then there was Daphne Greengrass and Alicia McNair who were nobody really. They were unremarkable for so called purebloods.

Blaise was starting to think that there was a serious problem with the "I am a pureblood" mantra. Granger was a muggle born witch but she was in the top intellectual ladder of the school as well as being a powerful witch. She was certainly a lot more powerful than many of the so-called purebloods. The same question always came up in his mind. Blaise was always wondering which banner to go to. Most Zabinis just stayed neutral and didn't bother with the idiotic factions currently struggling for power. Dumbledore was a manipulative egomaniac. He stood for status quo and the current ministry. The ministry itself was corrupt to the core and there was no doubt that the current minister was a moron. So many ancient wizarding traditions had been outlawed under his tenure. Anyone with a modicum of power was suspect of being an evil wizard. If they had their way, eventually the only spells being allowed to cast would be _scourgify_ and _accio_.

The other side was no better. From all accounts, the Dark Lord was a megalomaniac who revelled in torturing his supporters as much as muggles. He just wanted power for power's sake. He didn't intend to make their world better. Let's not forget that a one-year-old baby already defeated him. Granted, Potter is no ordinary wizard by any means. If half the stories about him are true, then he could possibly be one of the most powerful wizards to attend Hogwarts since Dumbledore. He had apparently faced Voldemort 5 times, with the latest incident at the department of mysteries. Potter and his underground defence group had been responsible for the capture of twelve death eaters. If a bunch of students could do that to the Dark Lord's forces what did that say about the maniac himself. No, Blaise thought, following that barbarian was not an option. Maybe the best strategy he thought was to just stay neutral for now.

Blaise came out of his thoughts and was absently looking at his family tapestry when he roamed over his immediate family, and something caught his eyes that made him come off the couch in a hurry. He went closer to the tapestry and one name was burned into his mind. Blaise dropped his glass of orange juice to the ground and yelled "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?"

By that time, the whole house was awake and his whole family came rushing down to the living room to see why Blaise was screaming at the top of his lungs. His father Michael Zabini was the first to reach him with his wand drawn out and said.

"What's going on?" His father bellowed. Blaise just pointed at the family tapestry where Xiana's name was. His father followed his son's direction and what he saw had him completely bewildered. He finally managed to say.

"What in the name of Merlin, has your sister gotten herself into?" By that time Blaise's sister, Brianna and his mother Xenna had joined them. His mother was the first one to get herself under control. She was the first one to speak.

"Why are you yelling like a Banshee in heat?" His father answered his mother.

"Our oldest daughter apparently got herself married to Harry James Potter?" His mothers jaw nearly dropped to the floor and his twin sister's eyebrows were near her hairline. At that point, everyone began talking to each other at the same time, trying to understand the event that had rocked their family to the core. At that moment, the main fireplace roared to a large green flame and Xiana's head poked through.

Xiana managed to put in a floo call to see if she could talk to her mother first. Deep down she knew that her parents would be shocked. Not only had she not consulted them on her choice of husband, but also she had not invited any of them to her wedding. Xiana made the call and met her mother. Looking about she found her entire family in the living room. This was unusual as it was early in the morning and most of them should be sleeping. Looking at her daughter, Xenna Zabini took the call and said.

"Darling, it's so good to see you. We were all looking at the family tapestry and noticed something quite peculiar involving you in fact. I was wondering if you were planning to visit us. We would very much like you to come over and talk with us. I know you are still angry, but we only want to talk to you." Xiana thought about her mother words and finally answered.

"I'll be seeing you at 1:00 pm this afternoon. There are many things to discuss. I may be mad at you, but never forget that I love you." With these words, they parted ways until the appointed time.

In the meantime, the rest of the Zabini family was still in a state of shock trying to understand how a Zabini could be married to a Potter. One member of the family who was not talking very much and seemed to be lost in thought was the head of the Zabini household. Michael Zabini was a Slytherin and by definition learned from past mistakes. Only a fool failed to learn from their mistakes. He had already lost a son due to his stupidity and he was not about to repeat the same mistake with his oldest daughter. Every day since Xoran's death, he blamed himself for the unfortunate event. He had already estranged his oldest daughter. He would do anything in his power to avoid driving her away.

Michael failed to see the expectant looks from his family as he was busy sorting his own feelings concerning his oldest daughters marriage to the boy-who-lived. Truth be told, he had no real objection to her marrying Harry Potter. Working on his case a while back, he had discovered how well off the young man was. Harry Potter was more than financially capable of taking care of his daughter. There was also the undeniable fact that the young man was a magical powerhouse. Harry Potter, had taken on the Dark Lord more time than anyone alive in the wizarding world, and was still breathing and kicking. No one had stood up the Dark Lord so many times and lived to tell about it. The only fault that he found with the young man was that he was far too close to Dumbledore for his taste. Dumbledore was not someone that inspired trust in him.

Michael was going to wait and hear his daughter out this time. He decided to stop the arguing and said, "All right everyone, please calm yourselves. We will get our answers when Xiana shows up at the appointed time. Until then, let's have proper breakfast and get on with our business." Everyone nodded and went about their activities.

At 1:00 pm, every Zabini member was sitting in the main living room looking at the fireplace. Suddenly a huge green fire erupted and Xiana Zabini casually walked out the fireplace. Blaise noticed that she was wearing what appeared to be a charcoal grey Basilisk robe with a hood. Her long black hair cascaded around her shoulders and she appeared very regal. Blaise was the first to notice the poise and confidence that she displayed. Her current demeanor was very different from the last time he saw her at his older brother's funeral. Xiana looked radiant. Blaise took a furtive glance at his father and noticed that he too was deep in thought.

The moment that Xiana was out of the fireplace, her parents came over and gave her a hug. She did not know what to expect, but was glad that her parents welcomed her with such passion. The Zabinis were not known to be a very demonstrative family when it came to emotions, but right now, it really felt as though they had really missed her. Xiana was the first to break the ice.

"Mother, Father it is nice to see you again." She turned to her siblings and was tackled by her younger sister and brother. They just stood there for about a minute until her mother caught her by the shoulders and spun her. Her mother was now fiercely hugging her. Finally, her mother Xenna managed to say.

"Love, it's so good to see you. I have been a worried sick about you." Her mother looked at her with a stern mouth. Xiana knew that she had worried both her parents with her lack of correspondence, but she also felt that their time apart was good. Finally, she found her voice and said.

"I am sorry about worrying you all, but after Xoran's death I needed some time alone. I can tell from all your faces that you have many questions you would like answered and are dying to get started. I know that by now you have all been alerted to my new status by looking at the family tapestry. I want you to know that I am not here to beg forgiveness for my new status. I will answer your questions as comfortably as I can." Xiana looked at her family and noticed that they were all waiting for her to continue.

"I can tell from your faces that you are wondering why I am now a Potter. Well before you judge him, you need to know who he really is, and what he means to me." Her brother Blaise was the first to speak.

"Xiana, I can't imagine that you know who Potter is but I do. He is nothing but Dumbledore's puppet. I have known him for 5 years now and I know that he doesn't think for himself. He is the bloody golden boy and tool of Dumbledore." He spat.

Xiana looked at her brother with her sapphire eyes burning, and he seemed to quail under her stare. She finally found her voice." Blaise, I have known Harry for a lot longer than a few weeks. I need you to understand where I come from and why I did what I did." Xiana looked at her mother and said.

"Mother, I need all of you to understand what has happened this summer, but to do this I will need the family pensieve. Could you get the pensieve please?" Her mother looked at her eyes and could almost see her daughter's plea. Xenna immediately got up and went to fetch the family pensieve. When she came back, she deposited the object in front of her daughter.

Xiana looked at her family and said, "I know that you heard the Potter name and have all of these pre-conceived notions, however I want to set the record straight. I am sure that you have been following the newspaper and have heard of the scorpion sorcerer. After you view my memories and feel what I feel, you will understand. Before I show you anything, I need all of you to take a wizards oath that what you are about to see will never be revealed to anyone but the family. If you do not agree I will leave forever."

Xenna looked at her daughter and knew that she was telling the truth. They had everything to lose today. Xenna looked at the rest of her family and noticed the look of shock on their faces. She knew what was at stake. Anyone breaking their oath would become an instant squib. Her request was the biggest binding wizarding contract there was. Her daughter's respect for her family was at stake here and the last thing she wanted was a repeat of the events that led to her son's death. She finally found her voice and said.

"I Xenna Zabini swear on my blood that I will never reveal what I am about to be shown." The rest of their family followed. Xiana was satisfied with their oath. She put her wand to her temple and pulled a large silvery strand from her mind and let the memory float in the pensieve. She repeated the procedure another six times. She told her family to go in and when they were finished, she would answer all of their questions. After what must have been forty-five minutes, her relatives began making their way out of the pensieve.

Blaise looked like he had run a twenty-mile marathon, her sister had the biggest calculating look that she had ever seen on her and her parents looked completely shocked. Her mother was the first to recover.

Xenna was looking at her daughter's eyes and finally found her voice and uttered, "I just want you to know that I hold no grudge towards your union. I know that you were terribly hurt when your brother was killed. Fate intervened on your behalf love. I do not know Harry so I cannot comment on his character. However, I do trust your judgment, and that will have to be enough for now. "

Xiana took that moment to look at the rest of her family and noticed a look of bewilderment, fear, and respect. Her gaze finally settled on her father. At the same time, he looked up and gazed into his daughter's eyes, which were so much like her mothers. After several seconds, he straightened himself and smiled at his daughter.

Michael Zabini was many things, but he was no fool. He realized from her memories how much she loved her husband. Michael had to admit that the Potter heir was pretty much what he wanted in a son in law. He was brave, loyal and ruthless and obviously had the cunning of a true Slytherin. Michael also understood that young Potter was not really 16 years old. Due to his training, he was closer to 20. From Xiana's memories, he had witnessed the battle in France. Michael was quite shocked to see how his new son in law had dealt with the Dark Lord's minions. The ferociousness of Harry's attack and the dark magic he used compelled him to firmly believe that a true split had occurred between Dumbledore and him. The supposed leader of the light would never have thought him such magic. His new son in law was nobody's fool. It seemed that a new front had opened up in the war.

Michel also knew from his daughter's memories that she had also learned a lot of dark magic. Michael knew that knowledge was power and protection. Harry was obviously well versed in the dark arts and other magical arts. He wanted Harry to train Blaise and Brianna. If they needed to take an oath of loyalty, then so be it. He had one more request to make of his daughter before he gave her his blessing. He noticed the rest of the family looking at him to say something.

"Xiana, before I give my blessing to your union, could we please witness your marriage ceremony?" Michael said.

Whatever Xiana had expected from her father, this was not it. He was calm, cool, and collected. She also noticed a slight smile at the corner of his lips. Maybe deep down he was not disappointed with her after all. She decided to show them her marriage ceremony. She knew that she had made herself believe that they did not deserve to take part in her wedding ceremony; however she never said that they could not view the ceremony. She looked at her mother and noticed a very anguished look on her face. One look at her siblings and she recognized the same look in their eyes. She finally took her wand and pulled out her memories of that evening. When she was done, she said.

"I believe that you might also find this very interesting." She said with an amused look on her face.

They all approached the pensieve and on the count of three, they all touched the silvery mist and entered her memories. After about thirty minutes they all came back out and noticed her mother and sister were crying. Her father and younger brother had a look of pride on their faces. To her shock, her mother who was always cool and reserved came rushing towards her and grabbed her in a fierce hug. To her surprise again, her sister was next, and then her father and brother. They finally broke apart and her father said.

"Xiana, I give you my blessing. I think that Harry will make a fine addition to the Zabini family." He had a huge smile on his face. Xiana finally let go of the tears that she had been holding. She had wanted so much for her family to accept Harry. Her mother was the next one to speak.

"Darling, your ceremony was beautiful. You sure stuck it to the ministry and their stupid decrees. Those bastards are slowly killing our most sacred rituals. I for one am glad that you went against decree and revered the old ways. The ancient ones would be proud."

Her youngest brother spoke next, "Xiana, do you think that Harry will be going back to Hogwarts? Malfoy and his gang are planning something for him. I don't know what, but that stupid Malfoy has been bragging to anyone who will listen on how he is going to put Harry in his place."

Xiana turned to her brother and gave him an evil grin, "Don't worry Blaise. It's Malfoy who is in for a surprise." The reason that Harry is going back to Hogwarts, is to find kindred spirits who are willing to be part of an army that is going to fight Voldemort and then Dumbledore and the ministry. Harry believes that the time has long past for real changes to occur in the wizarding world. He despises the blind prejudice and dogma that permeates our world. He is out to make some real changes believe me."

Blaise listened to his sister and made up his mind. He looked her in the eyes and said "Xiana, I want you to know that I now consider Harry part of the family. Although I never took the time to get to know him before now, he needs to know that his back is covered in Slytherin house. Therefore, I will formally make a wizards oath that I will never betray Harry and will fight by his side when the time comes."

Xiana was surprised but pleased that her younger brother would do this. She knew that a wizard's oath was the most binding of contract. She went to her brother and gave him a hug. At that point, her sister spoke up.

"Xiana, obviously I don't know Harry. However like Blaise said, he is family now, and so I will take the oath as well. I will most likely be put in Slytherin house this year, and with the war coming, it is imperative that family sticks together. I will take the oath, but I would like you to talk to Harry and ask him if he could train us in his arts as well."

Xiana replied, "Don't worry, Harry and I have already planned ahead if you two wanted to join us. First thing if for you all to come to my new home so that you can get better acquainted with Harry. We will make it a feast. You will also meet Remus Lupin, Harry's last link to his parents. He is quite fond of him. I'll be leaving you a portkey that will activate next Saturday. We have lots of planning to do. Father, I believe that Harry would like to consult you on the affairs of the Wizengamot."

Her father replied, "I'd be glad to offer any assistance and information that he needs"

"Thank you," she said softly. She went to her father and kissed him on the cheek.

To her surprise, her parents also took the wizard oath to not betray and fight on their side when the time came. With that Xiana stood up and collected back all of her memories from the family pensieve. She then took out a dark ring encrusted with black diamonds. She gave it to her father. She told them that it was a portkey that would take them to Potter castle. With that done, she took out her wand and tapped her wedding ring, she instantly vanished without a sound, to the shock of her family.

Blaise noticed his sister's wand and wondered where she got it. It was beautiful. Blaise looked at his father and he could tell that he was thinking the same thing.

That evening back at Potter Manor, Xiana was sitting outside on the gazebo enjoying the warm evening air. The gazebo overlooking the sea had become her favorite place to come and relax. She reflected on her meeting with her family and was very pleased that they had blessed her union to Harry. Deep down she had missed her family, and was glad to have them back. They had obviously been shocked to learn the real Harry Potter. She could see the respect that her father now had for Harry. She was pulled from her musing when she saw her husband apparate back with Remus Lupin.

Xiana had learned about Remus during one of their memory sharing sessions. Before a union, it was encouraged for both the future groom and bride to share their most intimate memories. This helped to forge a very strong bond early on in their union. She knew that Remus Lupin had been one of his father's best friends. She also knew that Lupin cared a great deal for Harry. In actuality, Harry considered him family. She could do no less.

Harry and Remus ended up apparating on the western grounds of the castle. Remus was quick to recover, and had a look at Harry's true ancestral home for the first time in his life. James had never mentioned it. He probably did not even know that it existed. His first expression was one of awe. This place was huge. The grounds had beautiful trees and a nice pond with a small waterfall. The trees as far as he could see were holly, willows, and red oaks. There were many flowerbeds lining the walkways. He saw Harry turn around and Remus turned himself to see what was happening when he noticed a person approaching. She was tall with long silky raven black hair cascading around her shoulders. She had the most startling sapphire blue eyes he had ever seen. She was very beautiful, Remus thought.

Remus immediately recognized the person approaching them. He turned to Harry and said, "I'm sorry Harry, but even your memories do not do her justice. I must say cub, you have real taste in women."

Harry looked at Remus with a silly grin on his face and said, "I have to agree with you Moony. I don't know what she saw in me, but I'll take luck any way I can get it. Maybe it's fates way of making it up to me for the last 16 shitty years of my life."

Xiana was upon them and Harry grabbed her in a fierce hug and a passionate kiss. They broke apart and Xiana smiled at Remus and said, "Welcome home Remus." She then went up to Remus and gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek.

At this point Remus had tears in his eyes. He hugged her back. He could feel the unconditional acceptance from her. He broke from his hug and said, "It's good to finally have a home."

Harry then turned to Remus and echoed his wife's sentiment, "Remus, this is where you belong. This is your home. I have included a special place in the castle for your transformation. This place is safer than Hogwarts, believe me." Remus looked at Harry with mist in his eyes.

Remus couldn't help feeling that even though so much had been lost earlier that evening, he had gained a lot more. He was back with his cub in a safe place that he could call home, and best of all he no longer depended on those backstabbing Order of the Phoenix fuckers. How dare they use the Phoenix as their symbol? After what they had done to Harry, how Dumbledore was going to sacrifice James and Lily's son for the so-called greater good had been the last straw. He would never forgive them for the way they had treated Harry. Next time he saw them, there would be hell to pay.

They all went back to the castle discussing their ordeals and taking notes. Harry was more than happy when he heard how his extended family had accepted his union to Xiana. Her whole family was eager to talk to him and train. It never hurt to have more allies. Xiana had arranged for her family to visit next Saturday. The fact that the Zabini family were a well-known pureblood wizarding family and had a very extensive network of ministry and business connections would go a long way in further understanding the key players in the Wizengamot. Voldemort was just the start of what he felt he needed to do. When Voldemort was finally taken care of, he would turn his attention to the rest of the wizarding establishment. Real changes needed to happen and he was going to try his hardest to make that happen.

When they reached the castle, Harry and Xiana decided to give Remus the grand tour and assign his room. Remus for his part could not believe how good the castle looked. The woods, tiles, and marbles were exquisite. The Potter Library was huge. Everything was warm and welcoming. His room had its own bathroom and a small library with office. Remus couldn't conceive that this was all his. They then visited the dungeons and he saw his transformation room. It was well designed and had lots of comfort. Remus felt very content. When they were done with the castle, Harry decided to show him the trunk Manor. They went back onto the castle grounds and reached the trunk by the pond. Remus remembered seeing this trunk in Harry's memories back at Grimmauld place and knew that it was a unique design.

When they reached the inside of the trunk, Remus was floored! He couldn't believe what Harry had done. Seeing the look on Remus face, Harry went and got his builder's book and showed him the theory and how he had created such an expanded living environment in a trunk. After perusing Harry's manual, Remus simply could not form a coherent sentence at the moment. Harry decided to show him the entire trunk and showed him the room where Odin's Eye was kept. He told him about the wards that he had installed and proceeded to key Remus to every room except the warding crystal room and where Odin's eye was kept. When they were done, they made their way back to the castle where a late supper was waiting for them. Once again, Dobby and Winky had outdone themselves.

When they were done with supper, they retired to the living room to begin planning training sessions, and how they were going to recruit at Hogwarts. Harry filled Remus on all of his training to date. He told him of his plans on how he was going to take the fight to Voldemort, and how he planned to eventually restructure the entire Wizengamot and the ministry. He explained how he desired on buying back lands from muggles and building more wizarding enclaves for all magical creatures.

Remus sat and listened to everything Harry had to say. He was very impressed with the level of details he had put into his plans and saw room for improvement. Finally, Harry asked him to look at his plans and see if they could be improved. Remus not only had a home, but he had a job that would be crucial to the reformation. Remus found his voice and said.

"Harry it would be my honor to be a part of your team. I will go over everything and point out where necessary. I promise to leave no stone unturned. "Harry looked at Remus with a huge grin and clasped him on the shoulder.

The next day, they all woke up late and fully rested. Harry told Xiana and Remus that he was going out to do some errands. He had some specific stops to make and once that was done, he would concentrate on training his new generals. He told Remus to take the time and get acquainted with his new home. Xiana had some errands to run herself. She told Harry that she was heading to London to do some shopping. Harry didn't think it too unusual, and told her he would meet her later for supper. With that, they both left to complete their affairs.

Harry decided to go to Diagon Alley first. He needed to see a Mr. Ollivander and keep a promise. He made sure that he was wearing his Basilisk battle robes and cast an illusion charm to make the scorpions disappear. Harry then cast the same charm on his face. The last thing he needed was to meet some member of the Order of the Phoenix. He had seen quite enough of them for a while. When he was done concealing himself, he apparated to Diagon Alley's common apparition node. He made it there without a sound, and proceeded to Ollivander's.

Within twenty minutes, Harry had reached Ollivander's wand shop. He stepped up and opened the door. He walked inside and noticed that no one was around. Of course, he knew that Ollivander was probably analyzing him from one of his shop's corners. True to form, after what seemed like 5 minutes of waiting around the dusty shop, Ollivander made himself know. Ollivander looked carefully at the stranger and finally with a smile on his face said.

"Ah, Mr. Potter, what can I do for you today? Surely your wand is working properly?"

Harry looked a little shocked at first that he had been recognized so quickly. The shock faded quickly however and Harry decided to play the game properly.

Harry replied, "Yes, Mr. Ollivander, my Old wand is more than adequate, however I promised you that I would come back when I was able to fashion another wand. So here I am ready to fulfill my promise to you." With those words, Harry pulled out his new wands and laid them on Ollivander's workbench.

Harry also warned Ollivander to look at his wand but to not pick it up, due to the powerful recognition charms put on the wand. He told him that if he picked it up, he would feel a backlash equivalent to a crucio spell.

Ollivander looked at Harry with a grin on his face and approached the bench. He immediately saw that the wand was like nothing he had ever seen. One thing for sure, Ollivander fancied himself an artisan first. What he saw in front of him was nothing short of a work of art. He peered closer and determined that the wand itself was made of some type of metal. How in Merlin's name could this be? Every bit of theory he knew about magical focusing device said that only wood would work properly. Finally, after what seemed like five minutes of thought he looked into Potters fathomless green orbs and said.

"Mr. Potter, you have me at a loss. I cannot for the life of me figure out what this wand is, or how it works. Could you please elucidate the workings of this contraption?"

Harry listened to Ollivander and resisted the urge to laugh aloud. No he supposed, to an old wizard steeped in old magical theory, he had no doubt that Ollivander had no clue as to the workings of his new wand. He finally decided to take pity on the old wand maker and pulled out a piece of Naquadah, and threw it at Ollivander who caught the piece and gave the material an in depth visual analysis. Harry noticed Ollivander's confusion, and decided to explain.

Harry said, "What you are looking there is the basis material for my new wand technology. I am sure that in your apprenticeship you must have read about your ancestor Marcel Ollivander and his theory on wand making?"

Ollivander answered, "I seem to remember reading about his theories, but I assure you that they were proven to be a failure."

Harry replied, "I assure you that his theory was quite sound. Before I show you how my new wand works, I need to ask you for a wizard's oath that you will not reveal this information to anyone. I am not trying to be rude sir. I just need to take extreme caution with who I share this information. "

Ollivander smiled, adjusted his glasses, and answered, "Mr. Potter, for information such as this, I am willing to do just about anything. I will take the oath." With that, Ollivander carried out with his magical oath. When it was complete, Ollivander turned back to Harry and asked him to continue.

Harry smirked and replied, "Ah, my dear Mr. Ollivander I assure you that your ancestor was most definitely right. If you have a demonstration room, I would like to show you the merit of his theory. The reason it never worked was that no one had the means to fully follow his instructions. His theory stated that if ONE wizard or witch was able to fully charge a crystal shaft with their raw magical energy, then the crystals would act as a powerful focusing lens that was one hundred percent compatible with a wizard or witch's magical signature. The material you have in your hand makes it possible to fully charge the crystals because it acts as a magical energy amplifier. "

Ollivander brought Harry to his testing room. In the north end wall, there was a 10 X 5 X 2 solid granite wall for testing spells. Harry pulled out his wand and explained to him step by step how he had made his new wand. He then told him that he was going to use full power on his reducto spell. He positioned himself about 20-feet from the target. He centered himself and said _**Reducto.**_ Immediately the spell came out of his wand amplified a hundred times and struck its target true. The wall was completely obliterated. A normal wand would have simply caused a small hole in the wall.

For his part, Ollivander just stood there with his mouth opening and closing. To say that Ollivander was shocked would be the understatement of the year. When he was done staring at the rubble that used to be his wall, he jumped up and down as if Father Christmas had come early. He finally calmed himself down and turned towards Harry.

Ollivander said, "Do you remember what I told you when you first came to my shop? I told you that you that we could expect great things from you. It looks like you are well on your way to fulfilling those expectations. This discovery on wand making is easily an order of Merlin third class. I wanted to ask you if you would allow me to make those types of wands."

Harry raised one of his eyebrows and said, "My dear Mr. Ollivander, I will allow you to make these types of wands, but only to a select group of people of my choosing. You understand that with Voldemort's return, I need all of the advantages that I can get. I promise that you will have a significant clientele. Due to the blood runes involved in the wand making process, they must be activated on a full moon. I will supply the material and the location of fabrication. I will give 20 galleons for every wand made. When the war is over, I will consider leasing the technology to you to build as many wands as you want. Of course, the core material is hard to come by, and I will have to provide it to you for a fee. Does this arrangement suit you?"

Ollivander was giddy again and said, "The arrangement is more than fair Mr. Potter. I agree to make the wands to those you deem worthy and will use your process. I would only ask that you stay with me during the first wands I make for you, as you are the expert with this new wand making technology."

Harry answered, "It will be my pleasure sir." With that he told Ollivander that when the time was right, he would be back sometime after school to give him a portkey. With that business done, Harry went back out into Diagon alley and found himself a quiet alley where no one was present. He pulled out a map of England and located Cambridge University co-ordinates and apparated there. He looked around to get his bearing and made his way to one of the local pubs, the Free Press. According to his sources, it was a popular senior watering hole.

Harry hoped that his Internet contact was real. His second major task for the day was to meet his underground contact here. He made his way to the men's rest room and looked around to see if anyone was there. Seeing no one, he pulled out a matchbox size folder and enlarged it. When Harry was done, he made his way out of the restroom and went back to the corner table as he had been instructed to do. A server came over and asked him if he was interested in something to drink. He told him that a pint of McEwen's would be fine. He looked at his folder and reflected on what it contained.

Since discovering his talent for seeing magical signatures and energy flux, he had been pondering how to use this talent to better understand the unforgivables. One of the distinguished challenges to the wizarding world right now was the unforgivables. There were currently no known counter spells to AK and Crucio. This was strange since most other curses had some sort of counter shield. Harry read a passage on his muggle physics books about wavelength and natural oscillating frequency. He found out that muggles used electronic instrument to measure and analyze real time frequency.

Harry bought a Frequency spectrum analyzer and after a very frustrating learning curve found how to apply it to measuring magical energy. With Xiana's help, they ended up firing every spell that they knew including the unforgivables. These spells were repeated many times over. They ended up damaging many recording heads. During their experimentation, they must have destroyed over 120 heads.

After spending roughly £30,000 pounds on his experiments, they had complete frequency records of all the spells they knew. There was a reason for doing this. The more experimental data they had to work with, the more accurate the mathematical models would be. It didn't matter if you were dealing with wizard or muggle mathematics. Mathematics was the universal language that glued all of the sciences together.

Harry figured that since magic was a very refined energy, it could be measured. Anything that could be measured could be mathematically broken down. He took roughly a year in flux time to record, categorize, and break down the individual frequency into mathematical equations.

He figured that if he could mathematically understand the various frequencies making up a spell then he could find the inverse functions of those frequencies, which would give him the counter spell. Harry started on this project and realized very quickly why no counter spell had been developed for the unforgivables as of yet. A spell could be made up of anywhere from 30 to 140 individual frequency patterns. Amazing enough each frequency was made up of 30 independent variables as represented by the regressed polynomial. These variables represented emotional strength, transfiguration element, charm element, position of the moon, stance, light spectrum element, raw magical power, ambient natural magic strength …etc

An inverse frequency had to be mathematically deciphered for every frequency making up a spell. In the case of the unforgivables, they consisted of a 120 frequencies for Crucio and a maximum of 140 different frequencies for Avada Kedavra. Each of these frequencies was made up of a 30th order polynomial. To figure out the counter frequency to these spells would require 1.5E83 manual calculations to arithmetically decipher the spell. No magical person could possibly carry out these calculations manually in their lifetime.

Whoever figured out the unforgivables must have been one of those idiot savants or a certifiable wacko. That person must have been an arithmancy genius. Harry knew his own limitations, and realized that muggle know how could perhaps help wizard kind once again. Muggle science was very advanced, and this is where their computer savvy would come in handy. Harry came up with the idea to hire some muggles to write a software program that would help break down spells and find their counter. If the software was accurate, then all he needed was a fast computer to carry out the repetitive calculations.

Two weeks ago, when he was surfing the Internet he came across a web page describing cyber hackers. He figured out how to contact them. Harry did some more research, and found out that hackers were an elite group of people who wrote very harmful codes to disrupt regular muggle government and industrial activity.

Harry figured that these were exactly the type of people he was looking for. They were discreet, operated in the shadows and had the potential brains to figure out his problem. Harry figured that they should have the brainpower and know how to design a custom software program. There were many challenges that they would have to overcome. The hardest part would be to figure out the wand's geometric pattern. The software needed to distinguish if the counter spell was a charm, jinx, curse, or a combination of the above. Harry's cover story for the muggles designing the software was going to be that it was for deciphering ancient languages. They wouldn't know the difference because the spells they were working the equations from were Latin, Scandinavian, and Sumerian.

Harry thought it was a long shot, but he had nothing to lose. If it succeeded, it would give his troops a tremendous advantage. Most of wizard kind had such a distaste of muggles, that using muggle strength to solve some of their problems would never occur to them. Thank god, he had no such prejudice, he thought. Yes, he had a bad experience with muggles in the form of his aunt and uncle, but he knew that not every muggle was like them. Harry looked down at his watch and was beginning to worry that his contact wouldn't show up. Finally, Harry noticed someone wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, which had red Greek letters Phi, Gamma, Theta on the front. He was also wearing dark denim jeans and black doc martins.

The man approached him and said, "I am lost at sea?"

Harry answered "Seek the north star Sirius."

The man sat down, and turned his back and nodded towards the northeast corner of the pub and another figure started making his way to their table. That person turned out to be a girl. She too was wearing a black sweatshirt with a hood on. She sat at the table and pulled off her hood. She had dirty blond hair with deep brown eyes. Her face was plain but Harry could clearly see the intelligence behind them. The first person did the same thing and Harry noticed that he had black hair and deep blue eyes.

They looked at each other and Harry used his Legilimency ability to read their thoughts. He read that they were very serious about this job, and that they needed funds very bad. He found out that they were both working on their computer science PhD. Satisfied with his scans he reached out with his hand and introduced himself. The woman introduced herself as Terminal Reboot, and the man called himself Techno Mage. Harry raised his eyebrows at the man's cyber call sign. They were both members of the hackers group _**Root Access**_. They both sported earrings and Harry could tell that they had real attitudes.

Harry not wanting to waste any more time finally said, "I'm glad to be finally meeting you. I have a job that requires some discretion and I came across your group in cyber space. I got the idea that maybe I could hire your group to code me designer software. Money is not an issue, however I need you to look at the math involved and tell me up front if you can do this or not. I do not wish to waste your or my time."

The man looked at his notepad, and his various frequency recordings. He and the girl exchanged his notes back and forth. They were muttering all sorts of mathematical and computer jargon that left Harry feeling like a second rate.

After what must have been 20 minutes of close examination, Techno Mage said, "Well from what I can see, these are fairly complex math series. It will take some time to develop the satchel codes. It will probably take four to six months to code and debug the software with a four people team."

He looked into Harry's eyes and said," I'll have to ask you for half the payment up front."

Harry replied, "How much do you want upfront?"

The man replied, "That will be sixty thousand pounds up front and another sixty thousand when the software is complete. Take it or leave it."

Harry sat there and gave them each a piercing glare and finally said "No problems." Harry had an amused look on his face. He looked around the pub to make sure that no one was looking and pulled out the money and handed it over to them. The state of shock on their faces was priceless. Earlier that day he had converted eighty thousand pounds from galleons in case this problem presented itself.

Harry gave them a muggle postal address, so that they could contact him if they needed some clarification. He used the post office located two blocks away from the Leaky Cauldron. Harry also set up a meeting with them for November 24 for an update on the software. Harry knew that from their minds that they would not try to cheat him. For one thing, they enjoyed challenges, and looked at his problem as just that. Second thing was that they were strapped for cash, so they were not going to pass up on the additional sixty thousand pounds. They now knew that he meant business, and so they were motivated. Satisfied about his new arrangement, Harry left and found himself in the back of the pub. He looked around to make sure that no one was there and apparated back to Potter castle.

By the time he got back to the castle it was nearly 3:30 pm. Harry went to his trunk manor to make sure that everything was properly organized for when Luna, Neville, Bill, Fleur, Charlie and Remus showed up. They were going to jump start their training prior to school starting. His first priority was to teach them Occlumency and Dark Arts 101. A great part of their training would include duelling, advanced combat and transfiguration charms. If time permitted, he would include battle strategies and tactics. All of them had taken some vacation time to attend camp active pain.

In the meantime, Harry needed to develop better ways to incorporate his ancient dark arts knowledge into battle strategies. He also needed to devote some time to developing better communications between his key members. Owls were nice, but quaint. Wizard kind needed to get up to speed on modern communication. The problem was Hogwarts and to some extent his own castle. The powerful wards interfered with muggle electronics. The ambient magical energy tended to fry some of the more sensitive part in muggle electronics.

Harry figured he needed to find better insulator and filters for the electronic. He was going to devote some time to the problem. He made sure that he bought four more iceboxes that are magical. With all of the days spent in training and his tutors, he needed to replenish them. He bought an Italian, Greek, French, and English meal plan. Harry had developed a taste for a variety of different foods. He then decided to go check his potions lab. He needed to make more Naquadah blood potions and some bone strengthening potions. Harry figured that he would share many of his secrets with his friends but not all of them. Sun-Tzu always said to always keep a secret or two in you back pocket just in case.

Meanwhile, Xiana was in the bathroom reading the muggle instruction on the box. She had stepped out earlier and had gone to London to do some shopping and went to a muggle drug store. She knew that tomorrow Neville and Luna were coming for training, and Xiana did not want to go into flux time if she was pregnant. Xiana initially planned to wait for her period, but circumstances had forced her to find out sooner. Truth be told, she knew in the back of her mind that she was, and just wanted to confirm it. After about 20 minutes, the little stick turned blue. She repeated the experiment once more time and the stick turned blue again. Xiana had a big smile on her face and was ecstatic.

Well flux time was out of the question for her. She did not want to tell Harry right away, she wanted to tell the whole family at the same time. She needed to find a good excuse to stay at the castle while Harry was training in flux time. She needed time to prepare to receive her parents anyway. She was also going to ask Dobby and Winky to help her fix the bedroom connected to their master bedroom and turn it into a nursery. She also needed to keep up with her duelling. No animagus transformations until the baby was born. Xiana was starting to get a feel on how much her life was going to change. She made sure to banish her pregnancy test kit and left the bathroom. She did not notice that she was humming a lullaby to herself.

Harry finished up with his preparations, and made his way back to the castle. It was nearly 6:00 pm and Harry needed to wash up and get ready for suppertime. He made his way to the kitchen and found Dobby and Winky happily preparing supper. Dobby was the first to notice Harry and came running and tackled him at the knees. Dobby said

"Oh, Master Harry Potter Sir! How is your day going Sir?" Shortly after Winky came running and curtsied to him.

Harry couldn't help smiling at the both of them and lowered himself to their level and said "How are my two favorite elves in the world doing today?" They became both so emotional, and Winky replied

"We are doing fine master, we is so happy to be bonded to great wizard Harry Potter sir."

Harry replied, "I am the lucky one, I have two wonderful additions to my family." By now both elves were bawling. They were strange creatures, elf. When they were done with their display of emotions, they both smiled and went back to preparing supper. Harry shook his head smiling and made his way to the library and met up with Remus.

Harry said, "Hey Remus, how was your first day of exploration?"

Remus turned around and smiled when he saw his cub, "It was fantastic Harry. You did a great job on this place."

Harry replied, "Well I had an awful lot of help from Dobby and Winky and from by better half of course." He said with a grin. Remus just chuckled.

Harry then said, "Well I think it will be time for supper real soon. Hope you are hungry, if I know these two, they will make enough for an army."

Remus replied, "Don't worry cub, I'm famished. I ended up skipping lunch - I was so engrossed by your library. My God you have some rare tomes in here."

Harry answered. "Yeah, I have barely scratched the surface on some of them. Well now that I am in my true home, and magic is not considered a dirty word, I'll be able to get through all of these tomes in time. Come on let's go to the living room."

When they got there, they met up with Xiana and chatted about their day. They had an aperitif and Winky came into the living room to let them know that supper was ready. Once again, they had a wonderful supper, followed with dessert. When they were done, Xiana told Harry that she wanted to stay in the castle until her parents came over.

She explained that she wanted everything to go smooth, and wanted to redo some decorating. Harry thought about it and decided that his meeting with his in laws was indeed important. First impression counted for a lot. Harry told her that she was not going to miss out much, because she knew all of it. He did ask her to continue with her martial arts and some spell casting. She kissed him soundly and told him not to worry.

He hated that one thing about flux time. There was no way for her to contact him while in flux. He didn't like the fact that he was going to be away from her for a whole month, but he needed to get his army started, and for that to happen he had to start with well trained officers. Harry made sure that her wedding ring was keyed to the other trunk Manors just in case something went wrong while he was training. Harry had full confidence in his wards, but it always paid to have extra insurance.

Harry bid good night to Remus and went to his bedroom office to work on a training schedule. After about an hour of revising and formulating plans, he was satisfied with his schedule.

_**August 23-29 Odin's Months**_

_5:30-7:00 am Physical training running for 30 to 45 min, work on a set of muscle arm, then chest, arms, legs…etc. Include 30 min of Tai Chi_

_7:00-7:15 showers_

_7:15-8:00 am Breakfast_

_8:00- 10:00 am Martial Arts /Body Magic/Normal Apparition._

_10:00-11:30 Dark Arts Theory/ Practice (Necron's Books)_

_11:30- 12:00 lunch_

_12:00- 1:00 pm Duelling Transfiguration_

_1:00- 2:00 pm Duelling Charms_

_2:00-4:00 pm Duelling Practice_

_4:00-6:00 pm Battle Strategies/Muggle Science_

_6:00-7:00 Supper_

_7:00-9:00 Occlumency/ Medical Potions (alternate every other day)_

_9:00-11:00 Leisure time. Do as you please._

Harry figured that the next seven months in flux time would be sufficient time to bring his inner circle to a respectable lethal level. They would become quite competent in the disciplines he had outlined. Next full moon, he would make sure that they have brand new wands attuned to their magical signature. Harry went to bed and was soon followed by Xiana.

Harry nestled his wife to him and two hours later fell into a blissful sleep. He woke up early and went for his usual physical exercise. When he was done, he showered and went down for a large breakfast. He met up with Remus, Bill, Charlie, and Fleur. Xiana showed up shortly after and they all sat down to a large breakfast. Harry was a bit sad. He would not see Xiana for a month. They finished breakfast and Harry gave Xiana a long passionate kiss. She told him that they would see each other soon and to train hard.

They all left for the trunk manor. Once inside, everyone was settled into his or her respective room. Not long after they came down, they heard the portkey room activate and went to greet Luna and Neville. After mutual greetings, Harry showed them to their rooms and they got started on their training.

_**28 weeks later Odin Time**_

Harry woke up and everyone had already left the trunk manor. Bill, Charlie, and Fleur had gone back to work, and Remus was going back to the castle to relax. Neville and Luna went back to Longbottom Manor. These last seven months had been truly spectacular. His inner circle was now very proficient Occlumens. Harry was very proud of them, they were now truly lethal. They had mastered the books of Necron. Harry had taught them some very simple parseltongue magic.

Now that Neville's block was removed, he had made astounding progress. He was now easily the best dueller of his inner circle. He had even beaten Remus. Luna and Neville had spent most of their free time at night studying their sixth and 7th year NEWT level courses. They had made extensive use of his potions lab. Since there was no slimy greasy git bothering Neville, he had spent a considerable amount of time learning potions the proper way. Harry had stepped in when Luna could not. They were nearly finished with their seventh NEWT material.

Harry had made plans for when they returned to Hogwarts. During the weekends they would all portkey to his trunk manor by the lake and they would flux time the weekends. By the end of September, Neville and Luna will have finished their 7th year NEWT material. The idea was for all of them to write their NEWT next spring. Harry knew that he would be bored out of his skull going back to Hogwarts, but he needed to be there to recruit and train his future army.

Going to Hogwarts would also provide a front for his excursions. No one knew that he could apparate out of Hogwarts. He planned to be very active in disrupting moldy warts' plans this coming year. He needed to keep the snake disorganized and prevent him from gaining in strength while he trained his army. In any case, Harry was sure that the final battle would occur at Hogwarts. He planned to devote most of his class time into figuring out how to dispose of Voldemort for the last time.

He planned to use Neville and Luna a lot to train the others. He needed them to become teachers to the new recruits. In fact, most of their coming year would be devoted to bringing the next batch of scorpion soldiers up to speed. Harry had read extensively on muggle warfare. If one thing was drilled into his brain, it was the need for an expertly trained army. An all-volunteer army sharing your ideals and not coerced or forced to agree with you was going to be their strength. Moldy shorts' army was mostly made up of scared conscript. This is why Harry needed his officers free of schoolwork and devote as much of their time to teaching and training as possible.

By next spring, Neville and Luna would be more than ready to write their NEWT. Harry planned to write his before Halloween. He was going to keep this little bit of information from the old bastard and the ministry for as long as he could. Harry knew that eventually everyone would find out who the scorpion sorcerer was. When the war was over, he needed his NEWT to function in the magical world. Therefore, that little bit of administration had to be finished.

Another good thing to come out of these last seven months Harry thought was the fact that he had discovered a way to make electronic work with magic. His discovery came from his muggle warfare and physics books. Large magical concentrations such as Hogwarts create a continuous broadband, of high-intensity, short-duration burst of electromagnetic energy. The electromagnetic pulses consist of a continuous frequency spectrum. Most of the energy is distributed throughout the lower frequencies between 3 Hz and 30 kHz. These stray frequencies are enough to induce harmful voltage and current spikes in muggle electronics.

Muggle army buy specialized communication that have advanced metallic and filters shielding to protect against harmful EMP. Harry only needed to find a company that tailored to muggle armies and buy communications from them. Harry figured his best bet was to target low-key American company. They were a lot easier to access then European ones. He would make his search before he went back to Hogwarts. Harry finished packing his clothes and made his way back to the castle.

Meanwhile Remus was busy putting some books back into the library and was thinking back on his last month in flux time. Remus never realized how much magic he was oblivious to until he started studying the dark arts. Along with his study, he had become a much better duellists and fighter. Remus was confident that he could now take on three fully trained Aurors and not even break a sweat. Remus knew that he had always been very talented at defence. He always took pride in his duelling abilities, until he started practicing against his cub. If Remus were honest with himself, he would admit to being very awed at Harry's powers. No matter how hard he tried, Harry could whip his butt, in no time flat. Lily and James would be so proud of their son, he sure was.

Remus recalled one defining moment of Harry's powers. Just two weeks ago, Harry wanted to know where everyone was in his or her duelling capacity. He had everyone gather in a circle and proposed that they all duel against him. Remus thought that he had a death wish. Looking at everyone, he saw a look of anguish on their faces.

Remus knew that Harry was an exceptional dueller but what he saw that evening would stay marked in his head forever. All six of them formed a circle around Harry. Remus could tell that even Neville seemed to believe that Harry had bit off more than he could chew. Harry began by telling everybody to throw everything they had at him. He told them to show no mercy. Harry counted down and when he reached zero, everyone shouted all forms of curses at him. Some were extremely dangerous, but Harry didn't seem to have a care in the world.

What came next was a ballet of the assassins. Harry moved with such speed and grace that it seemed that he was possessed. Using the weirding way, Harry moved with the speed of a vampire and the strength of a werewolf. He was jumping, kicking, and uttering curses that were toying with them. Remus himself managed to cast six curses at Harry before he went down. He was the fourth opponent to go down that night. The last person to go down was Neville. After fifteen minutes of hardcore duelling, Neville ended up stunned. Last man standing was Harry. After many counter curses and healing potions, everyone was back on their feet and shaking their heads.

Harry had several cuts and bruises and his left forearm and right leg. They both looked black and blue, but he was still last person standing. Remus never realized how powerful Harry was until that duel. Looking around all of the other faces that night, he knew he was not alone thinking that. With all of their training, they knew that they could match a pack of death eaters any day, however fighting Harry was a very different scenario. Remus now realized why that battle in France was no mere fluke. For the first time in a very long time, Remus now held hope that there was someone one who could finally match Voldemort and potentially beat him. With these thoughts in his head and a big smile on his face, Remus went back to the library and picked out ancient tomes on arcane magic.

_**August 29, Longbottom Manor**_

Meanwhile back at Longbottom manor, Neville and Luna were sitting at a nice table in his grandmothers' greenhouse. They were of course discussing all that they had learned from Harry these last seven months. Neville couldn't believe all of the changes he experienced. Neville now felt that he had come into his own. Harry made him see that he was not weak and timid. Harry believed in him, and that had been all that he needed to find his path. He owed Harry so much. They had become very close friends these past seven months.

Neville knew that this year was going to be special. A reckoning was coming and a lot of old scores would be settled one way or another. Harry had shared his vision for a new wizarding world, and both Luna and he believed in his vision of a new wizarding world. He wanted to bring true equality and freedom. Harry wanted to establish a new system of governance, based on true democratic ideals, both the Wizengamot and the ministry needed to be burned down for the new system to take effect.

He looked at Luna, his girlfriend for over five months now. Neville had already admitted to himself that he loved her. Yes, Luna was eccentric, however that just made her interesting, not loony. Truth be told, she was one of the most intelligent, and caring persons he knew. He was afraid for her, but he couldn't help it, loving someone made you feel that way. The best way for them to come out of this war alive and well was to keep doing what they had started. Learn how to fight, and fight to win.

One thing that Harry had drilled into their heads was to show no mercy in battle. Neville knew that he would never reach Harry's level of duelling, but then again he was in a class by himself. Their last duel against him had certainly proven that. The speed, power, and duelling finesse that he had shown them were inspiring. Neville couldn't help admiring Harry. Harry was the bravest, most loyal person you could have at you side. He was also extremely intelligent, cunning, and ruthless.

Neville considered Harry like the brother he never had. Their circumstances were so similar. Their parents had been best friends. Voldemort had taken their parents away from them. They had both been ridiculed by the wizarding world. Most people thought that he was a weak wizard with no discernible talent. These same people thought that Harry was a deluded, attention-seeking brat. Oh yes, he thought, the wizarding public. These bastards are worse than death eaters. They are spineless cowards who can't fight for themselves, thus putting people in position to fight for them, and then at the end of the day, getting rid of these people once they outlived their usefulness, or when they feel threatened. It was time to get rid of all these spineless shits he thought. Neville made a solemn promise to be with Harry at the final battle, his own honor demanded no less. Neville was brought out of his musing by Luna when she uttered.

"Neville? Are you O.K? You seemed angry for some reason?" Neville looked up into Luna's silver blue eyes and smiled. Neville replied

"Sorry love, I was just thinking about all the hardship Harry and I have had to deal with." The last was said in a sad tone.

Luna looked at her boyfriend, stood up, and went to sit on his lap. She looked up at his cinnamon eyes and said "I know what pain is love. I saw my mother die with my own eyes. Remember that there is a balance in the universe. Eventually fate will smile on us also, if not then Harry will kick fate's ass for us."

Neville laughed at that and replied "You are right love. Harry is stubborn enough to bend fate I think." They then kissed passionately before they broke apart. They spent another hour holding each other talking about Harry's plan for recruiting and how to best avoid any suspicion from the headmaster. They both agreed that using the Chamber of Secrets was a brilliant idea for training. They kept talking until Luna had to go back home. They would see each other on the Hogwarts Express. They didn't need to take the train now that they could apparate by map. One of their missions was to gauge the waters with the other students. Try to find out what their opinion were regarding the ministry and Voldemort. One person they needed to talk to was Ginny Weasley.

**August 29, 4:00 pm Headmaster Office Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.**

An outsider looking into the headmasters' office would have noticed an elderly man with a very long and white beard pacing around his office. In fact, this man had been doing that a lot this past week. People who knew him would say that he had aged a lot this past seven days. The man doing all the pacing and muttering to himself was none other than the proclaimed light wizard Albus Dumbledore.

Albus was looking at Fawkes deep in thought. He was trying to find a way out of his current mess. He had lost his pawn. It would take a miracle to get it back. One of his main problems was that he didn't know whether the boy was dark or not. Truth be told, Albus was still trying to figure out how Harry had managed to apparate out of his anti apparition wards. He had put an awful lot of his power in the anti apparition field, yet the boy had simply slipped through them like a hot knife in butter.

Albus was a very frustrated man lately. The only weapon capable of defeating Voldemort had managed to wiggle out of his grasp, and managed to develop a major independent streak to boot. Albus had been shocked at the boy's ruthlessness. He knew that there was a risk that he would be caught at some point. However he never planned on strategy being found out this soon. The boy held some very nasty cards over his head.

This could not continue. He had to find a way to discredit the boy someway, without driving him even further from his sphere of influence. The problems with the boy were not his only pressing problem. There was this Scorpion Sorcerer running around killing people as if it was the most natural thing in the world. This wizard could pose a very real threat to his influence and power. He had to find out who it was and put a stop to him somehow. The Order of the Phoenix had to be seen as the guardians of the light.

Well one problem at a time Albus thought. He needed to get Harry back under his influence. He now knew that the link between Harry and Voldemort was completely severed. His headaches were certainly a testament to the boy's mind magic. He needed to make the boy believe that only he could give him the training he needed to defeat Voldemort. There was no doubt in his mind that the boy was powerful. He was powerful enough to challenge him eventually. The best way to contain Harry was to eventually play Fudge against Harry. In time, Fudge could be fed some false information about Harry planning an eventual takeover of the ministry. The man was so paranoid concerning the boy-who-lived that he would do anything to contain him. Perhaps a trial for murdering Voldemort would be enough to put the boy in Azkaban.

The first step was to find a way to make the boy drop his lawsuit on him. Maybe he could make the boy attack one of his teachers. Severus would certainly go along with his plan, if it meant tormenting the boy. Perhaps a set up was needed. Attacking a teacher was punishable by expulsion. Surely, the boy would do anything not to be thrown out of Hogwarts. After all, in the wizarding world, one needed their NEWT to hold any kind of position. Albus kept thinking and plotting long into the night.

**August 30, Potter Manor**

The Zabinis were gathered in their living room holding on to the portkey that their daughter had given them. They were going to visit their daughter at Potter residence. Michael let everyone know that this was a formal affair, and that nothing but their best turn out would be tolerated. The Zabini family was a very prim and proper family. Ancient customs and protocols had to be followed according to the occasion at hand. Michael looked down at his watch and counted down. He finally said.

"Hang on everyone, portkey is activating."

The portkey activated and they all managed to land on their feet. The first thing that Blaise noticed was that they were somewhere on the coast of England. The second thing he noticed was how big Potter's residence was. Currently his family was standing on a beautiful terrace, and as he looked up he noticed Potter castle. It took an awful lot to impress the Zabini's but as of now Blaise could tell from the looks on his family's faces that they were truly impressed with the Potter estate.

Michael looked at the path and noticed both his daughter and Harry walking together holding hands. Walking behind them must have been Remus Lupin. Xiana was wearing a beautiful black robe with sapphire trims decorated with silver runes. Harry was also wearing a beautiful black robe with emerald trims also decorated with silver runes. Harry's uncle, Remus Lupin was wearing a sky blue robe with an emerald trim and silver rune inscribed on the trim.

Michael had to admit that a picture of Harry in a pensieve did not do his son in law justice. Michael could tell that the lad was over six feet tall; he was very well built and carried an air of charisma about him. Michael knew that this was not a man to be intimidated.

Blaise for his part noticed his sister and his brother in law coming along the path. God, Potter looked different he thought. The closer they got to him, the more he could feel the man's aura. There was definitely an aura of power about the man. He was a lot taller and better built than he remembered in their last school year. His hair was jet black and was tied in a wavy ponytail that stopped between his shoulder blades.

The most striking feature about the man was his eyes. They were emerald green and seemed to be shining like a neon sign. He went to his mother and in the pureblood etiquette he kissed her hand and welcomed her as Lady Zabini. He then went to his twin sister and kissed her hand. Next came a formal handshake with his father using the formal greeting. Finally, Harry faced him and extended his hand while uttering the traditional greetings. Blaise was impressed by his knowledge of wizarding etiquette and his formality.

Michael was the first to speak, "Harry, it is an honor to meet you. I and my family would like to extend our thanks for your hospitality."

Harry smiled and answered, "My home is your home. It pleases me greatly to finally meet you all. Xiana has told me so much about you. It is an honor to welcome the most noble and ancient house of Zabini."

Michael replied, "It is an honor to accept the warmth and hospitality of the most noble and ancient house of Potter." Both men came face to face and formally greeted each other by clasping each other's forearms. Harry introduced Remus to all of Xiana family members and they slowly made their way to the castle.

Harry explained the history of Potter castle. He told them about the renovations and the landscaping of the grounds. He explained the different protection mechanism safeguarding the castle. They entered the castle, and Xiana gave her family a tour of her home while Harry and Remus followed close by. It was obvious that her family loved his home. Her mother who was very gifted in the arts, knew style when she saw it. Xiana's mother absolutely loved the obsidian columns throughout the castle.

Xenna loved how the marble tiles, wood finish, and the colors of the castle were perfectly blended together. After spending an hour touring the castle, they made their way to the living room for some refreshment. Blaise looked at Harry in a completely different light. His sister had done very well for herself, he thought. Looking into her eyes, it was evident that she loved Harry with deep passion. He looked over at his twin and then his parents and he could tell that they were as impressed as he was. They were called to supper by Dobby and Winky.

Everyone enjoyed the supper. Xiana's father broached the subject of the Wizengamot with Harry. Michel said.

"Harry, Xiana told me that you wanted to find out about the inner workings of the Wizengamot, and who the key players are, is that so?"

Harry replied, "Yes sir, I need a better education on the inner workings of the Wizengamot in order to properly carry my plans."

Michael raised an eye brow and with an inkling of what was coming replied, "What plans would that be Harry."

Harry knew that he had to pick his words carefully. Harry wanted to see what their true feelings were regarding the policies of the Wizengamot and the ministry. Harry looked straight into Michael eyes and said.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…etc." When Harry was finished, Xiana's family was rendered speechless. Seeing that no one spoke, Harry continued.

"You see sir, I know that when the time comes, I will defeat the Dark Lord. The problem is what we do after he is defeated. I have no doubt that Dumbledore in conjunction with the ministry will find some way to incarcerate me, because they will fear me. They will object to my methods of fighting the Dark Lord and label me an evil wizard." Harry could see that they were absorbing his words, but no one dared speak while he was talking, so he continued.

"Sir, you should consider the fact that peace could not be achieved even by helping the Ministry. What happens after that? Should we find it in ourselves once again to help the Ministry rise up again over Voldemort? Deep down, I know that our efforts would be useless Sir, because these people are already too corrupt to build anew. The system is already rotten. The system has become a huge maw that feeds on corruption, prejudice, and fear. Under the current system, even If we ever achieved peace, that peace would be short-lived as the Ministry whose duty is to uphold it doesn't even care for it, thus it would only spark new troubles, new factions of discontented and unsettled people. Even if you put new leaders, it would be futile, as the system would eat these leaders. There are too many temptations in the Ministry, Sir. They would give in, one way or another."

Harry took a sip of wine and continued with his speech, "Is that the government we want to uphold Sir? Do we fight to the death, and leave the fruits of our success to weak and incompetent fools?" Harry looked to his audience and decided to leave them with his last thoughts, before the debate started. He looked at Xiana who gave him a slight nod to continue. Harry finally finished by saying.

"If we truly desire things to change, it must be a total change. We must abolish the old system and build anew, a much better one. A truly democratic system. We'll clear away the apathetic, the ungrateful ones, the people who would condemn you when all you did was fighting the dark and obtain revenge. The Ministry and the people have proven their ineptitude for good governance hundreds of times Sir. They betray people just to save their own skin. They must learn from this mistake. Moreover, I'm afraid by fighting for them the way Dumbledore is doing, they won't learn anything. It must be learned with pain to ensure that the message if fully understood by the masses. Otherwise, history will only repeat itself."

It was Brianna, who spoke first, "Harry, how do you plan to fight Voldemort and the ministry at the same time. Surely your resources would be spread far too thin."

Harry smiled at her and replied, "My plan it to steal Voldemort's resources, and use the proceeds to usurp the Wizengamot. I will use their own sins against them. You see, like any other army, Voldemort needs some sort of financial support to raise and maintain his army. They do not all fight for him out of the goodness of their heart. Part of the plan I have is to seek and take his financial centre. I know that some of the purebloods that are following his banner are rich. However even they do not have enough resources to bribe all of the spies that work at the ministry. No, he must be getting his financial acumens from somewhere else. This is what I am going to find out this fall. This will be part one of the plan."

Blaise had a very cunning smile on his face and said, "It's a pity, you were not a Slytherin Harry. You would have made my house proud." Harry looked at Blaise and with a wicked grin replied.

"It is better this way Blaise. The old fool will never suspect that a Gryffindor has that level of cunning. Just so you know the sorting hat wanted to put me in Slytherin." They both laughed, along with the rest of the family.

At that point, three things happened, both Blaise and Brianna told Harry that they had taken a wizards oath to follow him and watch his back. They also wanted to be trained in the dark arts. Harry welcomed them as family and allies. He told them that he planned on setting up the weekend during school days in flux time for training. The second thing that happened was that Michael agreed with most of what Harry said, and agreed to help him with the Wizengamot. He would provide a detailed portfolio of all the Wizengamot members. Xiana delivered the last and most important news of the night. She told the family that she was with child. The whole table erupted in cheers. Harry had tears in his eyes. He ran around the table and gave her a big hug and a kiss. He finally said.

"That's why you didn't want to come into flex time? You suspected that you were pregnant?" By this time, her whole family along with Remus came over to offer their support. Xiana's parents were very happy. It was Blaise who uttered the first words.

"Damn Potter, you don't waste any time do you?"

Harry replied, "Well you know what they say, no time like the present." Harry had a thousand questions for Xiana, but they could wait until tomorrow. He wanted to savor this gift tonight.

Michael spoke up and said, "Well it's getting late, and we should be getting back to the manor. Harry I'll be keeping in touch through Xiana. Don't be afraid to get a hold of me if you need anything."

Harry replied, "I won't Sir. Blaise, Brianna, I'll be seeing you at school."

With that, the Zabini clan took the floo back to their home. Xiana came over and grabbed Harry in a big hug and said.

"Thank you, love, for making this a very successful family gathering." With that, Harry gave her another passionate kiss and said.

"Anytime love. Well I think it's time to get some rest, because I don't mind telling you that I am knackered. Good night Remus."

Remus smiled and said "Good night you two. See you tomorrow."

Although quite fatigued, Harry still had a hard time falling asleep. He was going to be a father. This summer would go down as the biggest change of his life. He was much more secure in who he was and what he wanted. The news about his wife's pregnancy was even more impetus for him to make sure that he lived to see his children grow up. He felt his wife snuggle up to him, and the warmth of her body finally allowed him to fall asleep.

_**September 1**_

Harry was looking at his watch, and noticed that it was nearly 5:30 pm. He decided to apparate into Gryffindor tower, and make his way to the great hall just before the first years arrived. There was no way he was going to stay in at Hogwarts for this school year. Late last night Harry apparated to his favourite spot by the lake at Hogwarts and secured one of his trunk manors there. He then set up the complex parseltongue wards that would hide and protect the trunk manor. These included blood wards, elusion charms, perimeter alerts, and other nasty surprises for the uninvited.

To only way to reach, the trunk was by trunk-to-trunk floo or using his specialized way of apparating. Harry made sure to include normal anti apparition and portkey wards as part of the trunk defences. His elves had just finished his seventh trunk, and he place that one in the Potter castle library so that Xiana could travel from the castle to the lake undetected. Now that she was pregnant, the only safe way to travel for her was by floo.

The other bit of administration that Harry completed yesterday was to put an order with a company called Spy Links Ltd. They specialized in military communication and surveillance equipment. He placed a special order for cell phones, tracking bugs, and infrared detectors. Part of his plan involved gathering intelligence inside the castle.

Everyone knew how to install listening charms and how to counter them. Harry figured that no one would think to look for disguised muggle electronic equipment. For one thing, they could not be tracked using magic, because using magic did not create these items. Therefore, they had no magical signature to track them by. The other reason for using this equipment was that everyone believed that muggle electronics did not work at Hogwarts due to the ambient magic, therefore no one would think to look for it.

Harry just hoped that his theory was sound; otherwise he would be taking much greater risk getting his information. The stuff would take four weeks to be delivered. He gave the company his storage address. He would ask Dobby to go pick up his order when it got to England.

Meanwhile, on the Hogwarts express, Neville and Luna were doing everything in their power from losing their temper and hexing Hermione and Ron into oblivion. Hermione and Ron were trying to turn people against Harry by character assassination. They both believed that Harry was turning dark for killing Kreacher and attacking the headmaster. Finally, Neville's patience broke, and bellowed.

"Harry is not the traitor, you are the fucking traitors. You are the ones who deceived him. You are the ones who went behind his back. Fuck me, the headmaster tells him that he was going to sacrifice him for the good of the wizarding world, and you expect him to just nod and agree to it. Oh, sorry you didn't expect Luna and me to know this little bit of knowledge did you? Yes you see we were fortunate enough to see that particular confrontation though his memories in a pensieve."

By then both Hermione and Ron had turned white as sheets, but recovered quickly enough. Hermione replied, "The point is, he killed for no reason. No one is denying that what Kreacher did was wrong, but that is still no excuse for killing the elf. We are better than that. Death eaters kill for no reason. When we stoop to their level, we become just like them. If Harry can kill so easily, then he is no different than a death eater." She said the last bit in her know it all tone as usual.

Neville sneered at the both of them and shot back, "Gee, it must be nice sitting in your white ivory tower, waxing philosophy while REAL soldiers are preparing to fight this war. I wonder if you would still feel the same way, if you saw death eaters' rape, torture and kill your mother. I wonder if you would still stand on your light pedestal if those same death eaters raped and sodomized you. In case you haven't read your history, check back on the last war with Voldemort. The light side was losing badly until a one-year-old baby put an end to it. Dumbledore is not the right leader for this war."

Ron finally spoke up and said, "Oh, and I suppose we should all follow the recommendation of the squib here since he has fought so many wars, and defeated so many dark wizards. Gee Longbottom go back to your house plants, and let real wizards and witches deal with the tough issues."

Neville pulled out his wand so fast that Ron didn't even have time to react, and yelled _flipendo._ The spell was cast with such fury that Ron was lifted off his feet and smashed his head against the back wall of the cabin. He fell down in a heap dazed and confused. Neville hissed.

"How is that for a house plant loving squib, you dick head? Name your time and place prat, and I'll show you this squib's power." Luna put a calming hand on Neville, because the air around him was starting to crackle. Luna managed to say

"Let's get out of here of here Neville. The air is really starting to get foul." They both left the compartment to go talk with some Ravenclaws.

Ginny who had been in the compartment with them was just stunned. Her world was crashing like a house of cards. Harry was estranged from the Order, and he hated Ron and Hermione. Even Neville and Luna were fighting with her brother and Hermione. She was so confused. She didn't know whom to turn to anymore. She clearly understood why Harry was breaking away from Dumbledore and the Order. If she were in Harry's shoes, she would have reacted the same way. One thing for sure, although she did not voice her opinion, she did not agree with her prat of a brother. She needed to talk to Bill. He always gave her good, sound advice. First thing she would do this week is owl Bill to meet her. She was brought back from her musing when Draco Malfoy and the goon squad showed up.

Draco entered the compartment and found the weasel in a heap, the mudblood fawning over him and the weaslet lost in space. Draco smirked and said

"Well, well, well! Look boys, the mudblood has finally understood her position in the wizarding world. She is on her knees, before a pureblood. Good to see you are learning your place bitch. The weasel here probably knew we were coming and fainted. So where is Potty, I haven't seen him anywhere. Oh, let me guess, he is probably hiding from the Dark Lord."

Finally, Ron managed to get to his feet and said, "Malfoy, I really don't have the patience for your crap today, so why don't you just take your little ferret face out of here and blow like the wind, before we are forced to really hurt you."

Draco sneered and said, "The day you can take me on, will be the day your pathetic family becomes rich and powerful and your fat sow of a mother looks like a female again."

Ginny had a look of pure fury and before Ron could retaliate, she bellowed _Tangere-Secum_ at Malfoy. Malfoy never saw it coming and due to the short distance, he was hit with the spell and fell to the floor in excruciating pain. Ginny sent a bludgeoning spell to his testicles. She then said

"Malfoy if I were you, I wouldn't go bragging about the worth of your family. The whole wizarding world now knows that your daddy is nothing but a slimy, filthy death eater who cowers before the Dark Lord."

Draco was unable to utter one single sentence. He was too busy trying to breathe. When he managed to stand up, he succeeded in saying, "This isn't over. You will all get yours this year, mark my words." With that, he left with his two goons. Everyone took a seat and said nothing. The atmosphere in their compartment was fairly strained. Ginny couldn't help thinking that this year was going to be very interesting.

Finally, the Hogwarts express reached Hogsmead's station, where carriages pulled everyone towards the castle, except for the first years, which were going by boat across the lake. They all reached the castle and made their way to their respective table. Hermione looked at her watch and noticed that it was now 6:15 pm. Harry was still nowhere to be seen. Maybe if they were lucky, he decided not to come. His presence could only split the light side. This year was going to be very difficult she thought. Gryffindor house was going to be tested in their loyalties she was sure about that.

Meanwhile at Potter castle, Harry was checking himself one more time. He was wearing charcoal black pants with an emerald silk shirt. In his right ear, he was wearing a black scorpion diamond earring. His hair was hung loose, and cascaded in a wavy pattern to the back of his shoulder blade. His bangs were cut short, and his trademark lightning scar was visible for everyone to see. He was no longer shy about showing his scar. It was a reminder of who he was. Remus came in, gave him a hug, and told him to be careful.

Harry made sure that his katana was properly secured to his back. He decided to wear his basilisk robe and made sure to cast a parsel magic elusion charm on his robe to hide the scorpion emblem and his sword. He did not want Dumbledore to find out who the scorpion sorcerer was just yet. Another reason for wearing the basilisk robe was that everyone knew they were expensive, and if one thing he knew about the jealous prat was that he hated being reminded that he was poor. He was acting a bit childish he knew, but sometimes it felt good to pull on a scab and watch it bleed. Xiana came down and kissed him soundly. She then said

"Don't let Dumbledore get to you love. Control that temper of yours. I'll see you later tonight at the trunk manor. If you have a chance, say hello to my siblings for me."

Harry smirk and said, "Don't worry, I'll be on my best behavior most of the time. Not having to deal with Snape anymore, should greatly improve my temper. If I get a chance, I'll say hi to Blaise and Brianna" With that he stepped back and apparated to Gryffindor tower. He walked out of the portrait and made his way down to the great hall.

Dumbledore was sitting at the head table watching, the student settling themselves at their tables. One particular student he wanted to see had not arrived yet. Everyone was seated at their tables when a tall dark haired person walked in past the great doors and began to slowly make his way to his house table.

Every one turned to see whom that last person was coming into the great hall. The majority of the students had not seen Harry since June, so the person whom they knew as Harry Potter left most of them speechless. Many of the girls had lust in their eyes, and many of the males looked envious. However, everyone who was trying to describe the boy-who-lived that night could agree on one thing. They could all feel the powerful magical aura that was emanating from him. His eyes were glowing a deep emerald color. It seemed as if a lightning storm was going off in his eyes. The boy-who-lived looked very powerful indeed. Every girl in the hall was giving him an appraising look.

Blaise, who was sitting at the Slytherin table, was talking with Theo Nott when his brother in law walked into the great hall. Blaise had to stifle a laugh at the women's reaction to Harry. If they only knew his true status, they would be devastated, he thought. Blaise had to admit that Harry could put on a good show. Blaise knew that the show of power was aimed far more at the professor's than the students. Harry wanted them to see that he was easily their equal. Blaise carefully turned his head to get a better look at Malfoy and had to fight very hard to keep his composure. Malfoy's eyes were as big as dinner plates. He could tell that he was not expecting Harry to look so imposing. If Malfoy only knew what was coming down the pike.

Harry made his way to where Neville was sitting and sat himself down. He looked at the professors, one by one until he met Dumbledore and gave him a slight sneer. His gaze finally locked onto Snape, and Harry gave him a very evil looking smirk. Snape just sneered back at him. Harry could tell that Hermione and Ron were looking at him, but he couldn't care less. Hermione was obviously obliviated again. She seemed to pay no attention to his earlier comment about the compulsions and actually seemed even less friendly now. Well, he wouldn't waste any more effort on her.

The door swung open once more and a tall, black-haired witch in blood-red robes stood there. McGonagall had a very stern looking face. Hagrid showed up and announced "The first years professor."

"Thank you Hagrid." She replied. She took over and led the first years to front of the great hall where a lone stool stood with a hat sitting on top. One thing that was immediately apparent was the fact that one of the students was considerably taller than the rest. Dumbledore suddenly stood up and yelled quiet. The chatter instantly died down.

"Before we begin sorting our new first years, we will be sorting an exchange student from Durmstrang. She will be entering her six year with us, and I would like to extend my best wishes for a great year to Miss Brianna Zabini." The rest of the Hall politely clapped their hands.

Everyone was now staring at the Hat. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched and a rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth and the hat began:

_Listen to my warnings Last Year You did not_

_Betrayal, Jealousy, Mistrust was your creed_

_Now the Sleeper has awakened_

_The ancient powers will be unleashed_

_Your world as you knew it will be no more_

_The Fates have spoken, paths have been set, _

_Three visions will clash, the Old, the Present, and the New_

_Behold, the one with the power to vanquish the Old and the Present is among you_

_Thus, I warned you, as the battle of the age will come_

_Come they will with fierceness not seen in ages _

_I neither predict no side will suffer the worst nor lost_

_As you, all heed not my advice last year_

_The time to unite is over_

_As the time to choose has come_

_Choose wisely _

_As one side will seek to eradicate the blood of new_

_While the other, eradicate believers of change_

_The last eradicates all who stand against the golden path_

_One Winner takes all, let the rivers of blood flow._

Everybody is shocked beyond belief after hearing the hat's song. It was 'different' as nobody could really decide on the appropriate words. Harry had a completely new respect for the hat's powers of perception. After the hat's song, many eyes in the great hall had turned to look at him. Harry managed to look at Dumbledore and saw that his eyes were narrowed on him. After what must have been a minute, Professor McGonagall found her voice and called "Brianna Zabini"

Brianna walked to the stool and sat down. The hat was lowered unto her head and within seconds proclaimed Slytherin. Brianna turned to Harry and smiled. He smiled back and she made her way to the Slytherin table where her twin hugged her.

After the sorting ceremony, Dumbledore got to his feet. He was beaming at the student. "Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. As you all know Lord Voldemort has returned." Some people screeched at the mention of the Dark Lords name. Dumbledore continued

"I assure you that we at Hogwarts have taken every precaution imaginable to ensure your safety." Harry snorted at that last comment. McGonagall must have heard him because she looked at him and her lips were nothing but a pressed white line. Dumbledore continued

"For your safety, the forbidden forest is strictly out of bounds to all pupils, and a few of the older students should do well to remember that. I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for his or her house teams should contact Madame Hooch. Thank you for your time."

As usual, once the speech was done, the feast started. After an hour, everyone had their fill and the Prefects were given their marching orders to escort the first years to their dorms. Everyone began filing out of the doors. Harry was nearly last and when he began making his way towards the library, Malfoy and his two goons suddenly came out behind one of the columns to face Harry. Draco spoke first.

"Well boys, it seems that Potty is back with us once again. Are you still shedding tears for the mangy mutt? Aunt Bella just loves telling us how she got rid of the blood traitor. Gee Potty, your record is impressive. It seems anyone getting close to you just seems to die off. You have what, four confirmed kills. Damn I'll bet the Dark Lord would love to recruit you. It doesn't matter, I mean to keep my promise to you for putting my father in jail."

By now Harry's eyes were glowing like green coals, and He hissed back, "Sorry to disappoint you Malfoy, but unlike you, I don't make it a habit to kiss and grovel at the snake's robe. As for pureblood purity, if your two squib goons are to be any indication. Then I am sorry to say that your future world is doomed Draco poo." By now a crowd was gathering around the group. Harry decided to get a rise out of him. He began circling the trio, but paid particular attention to Crabbe and Goyle my making a show of examining them up and down. Harry finally said.

"If you so believe in your blood purity, then you can explain what happened to Crabbe and Goyle, whom I like to commonly refer to as Crabs and Boyles. Gee, with faces and names like that they should be poster boys for venereal disease. I'll bet they can barely generate enough brainpower to walk and talk at the same time. I mean all we ever hear out of them is grunts. I suppose when you are forced to keep intermarrying between cousins, you can certainly expect to limit the gene pool." By now Crabbe and Goyle were sneering and cracking their knuckles.

Many people were struggling not to burst out laughing. Draco was by now glaring at the boy-who-lived. Harry saw him reach for his wand. What happened next, Draco would never know, as Harry moved with such speed and ferociousness. Before Draco could register what was happening, both Crabbe and Goyle had been knocked out and were bleeding profusely from the nose, and as for him, he was being held by throat with a powerful grip, and his feet weren't touching the ground. His wand was lying below him on the ground.

Harry upon seeing the wands being drawn had acted in accordance with his training. He had smashed Crabbe and Goyle with an elbow hit to the kidney, the temple, nose and a knee to the face. Within three seconds, both were knocked out. He then used the weirding way and attacked Malfoy. Once he had secured him against the wall, Harry hissed.

"Listen here you albino fuck. I will no longer tolerate you and your bullshit. I'll tell you right now, you are nothing but a walking corpse, I so look forward to torturing your sorry ass, and you have no idea. Now if you don't want to hasten your status as a corpse, I would strongly suggest that you leave me alone. Don't worry, we will meet up soon enough. After all, casualty of war has to start somewhere no?" He finished his last sentence with a vicious kick to Malfoy's groin. He then cast _Merda-_ _Effreno _using wandless magic. It was a simple spell to cast at any rate. Suddenly a disgusting wet sound was heard, and some people began gagging from the smell emanating from Malfoy. Draco had just soiled himself in front of everybody. The smell of wet excrement was overpowering. Harry took this time to make his escape. Shortly after, Professor Flitwick and Professor Snape came over to see what the commotion was all about.

Professor Snape was the first one to reach Draco. Looking at Draco with disgust on his face, he pulled out his wand and cast several _scourgify_ spells at him. Snape looked at Draco on the ground and said, "Who did this?"

Draco replied in a pained voice, "Potter Sir." It was Blaise who spoke just loud enough for everyone to hear, including Professor McGonagall. "Professor Snape, Draco was the first one to start it sir. Potter was minding his own business, when Draco decided to torment him."

Blaise could tell that Snape was not happy about someone from his house defending a Gryffindor. Meanwhile, Harry had just apparated to the chamber of secrets. Looking around, Harry knew that this was going to be a long night.


	13. Chapter 12 Challenges

**Chapter 12 "Challenges"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry found himself in the dark. He quickly lit the torches in the chamber and walked towards the middle of the chamber to take a really good look. He decided to take his time and gather his thoughts. Harry knew that this was going to be the training chamber for his army. Harry knew that he already spent an awful lot of flux time training. If he wanted to have enough life left to see his grandchildren, he had to moderate his flux time from now on. This is why he wanted Neville and Luna up to speed. They would take the weekends to train the others, while they would learn more from him in real time. With some modifications this place would be ideal for that purpose.

Harry needed a way to get his students in the Chamber of Secrets without being detected. The best way to accomplish this was to create his special portkeys using his patented neutrino apparition signature. Unlike his and his wife's ring, he was going to make some minor modifications to the portkey ring. Harry felt that except for his immediate family and a very few select group of people, these portkey rings would contain a runic summoning charm that would be impossible to see or break unless they knew the spells in high parseltongue.

This way if by some fate of chance one of his soldiers betrayed him, he would be able to get the portkey back from anywhere in the world. As before all he had to do was imprint his apparition signature in a crystal, cast some special runes, and let the person's raw magic replenish the crystal's energy. The main crystal would contain his apparition signature, with a permanent locking charm. The surrounding four crystals around the main acted as the magical storage and discharge medium. It supplied the main with the energy to activate the apparition signature. A second charm was layered on the main crystal locking charm in order to allow the input of co-ordinates. This could be done via a mental picture, or grid co-ordinates. The ring should be able to complete four portkey transports before being recharged. The base of the ring needed to be made of Naquadah.

Harry devoted a lot of time on how he wanted to alter the chamber. He needed to make it even bigger, add some portals and re-configure the front door. Only a parseltongue could get in. However he wanted to change the password to high parseltongue. This way only he could open the door. Not even snake face would be able to get in this way. After about 15 minutes, Harry had managed to change the password. It had not been too difficult since no one expected the heir of Salazar Slytherin to want to change the password, therefore no special locking charms were put on the password.

When he was done, Harry turned around, and began making a mental picture of how he wanted the new training area to look like. He could use expansion charms, but he didn't want to waste valuable crystals, Naquadah and magical energy. He needed all of these resources towards building his trunk manor, wands, portkeys and other weapons. Besides, there was more than enough space underground to expand the chamber by simply removing more stone, and building re-enforcing buttress.

His first problem was to find a place to banish the rock. Thank God he had quite a bit of practice at mining. He knew that the English strata were made up of many different layers of lime, sandstones and granite mixed with large underground caverns interspersed in the strata. He simply had to find an underground pocket to banish the granite.

He made his way to the center of the chamber and sat down in a lotus position. He relaxed his mind and entered his magical core. He then pushed his magical sense to the surrounding chamber and below. At roughly two kilometres beneath him and about three kilometres to the left laid a huge empty cavern. He let his magical sense explore the cavern and quickly managed to build a three dimensional picture of the underground cavern. Harry then triangulated its position with respect to the chamber. Once he had a clear idea of the co-ordinates, he stood up and went to face the left wall of the chamber. Harry took out his new wand, and began mining the walls. He used simple _reducto_ to pulverize chucks of walls and banished the rock into the underground cavern. Every ten feet Harry transfigured supporting struts.

By 11:30, he was feeling quite exhausted and decided to call it a day. He figured he was halfway done excavating and building support for the left chamber wall. He had a week to get this finished, and he planned on spending all of his free periods down here finishing his training chamber. Deciding that he was too tired to even apparate himself out, he used his wedding ring and portkeyed himself to his trunk manor by the lake. Within seconds, he was standing in the trunk's portkey room. Harry made his way out of the portkey room and proceeded to the kitchen to get himself a light snack. After taking down some pepper up potion and energy boosters, he made his way to one of the bathrooms. He took a quick shower and made his way to the master bedroom.

Being very careful not to make a sound, he approached the bed and noticed his wife sleeping peacefully with her beautiful dark hair falling around her face. He stripped down and took his naked self in between the sheets. He came into a lotus position, and began clearing his mind and sorting all of his memories and putting them into their proper folders.

When he was done clearing his mind and sorting his memories, he laid himself to bed and decided to see if some of his magical energy was still present in Dumbledore's mind. He wanted to see if his theory on inserting a Trojan would work. Harry figured that Dumbledore was merely days away from completely purging his mind of his raw magical energy sphere. Harry pictured creating a mind link to Dumbledore similar to the one he had with Voldemort. The only difference was that this link would be temporary.

Slowly Harry felt himself falling towards a dark tunnel. Harry had figured out that creating a mind link was no different than apparating. You were simply connecting two things in time using magic as the transport medium. You simply had to be very clear and focused as to where you wanted to go. After a while, Harry felt himself connecting to a residual ball of raw magic which he recognized as his magical signature buried deep in Dumbledore's consciousness. He felt himself connect with his magic, he felt as if he was in a small spherical chamber. From what he could tell, Dumbledore was indeed close to eradicating the last remnants of his raw magic. He stood in the sphere thinking of the best way to get out of it without making Dumbledore aware that he was in his head. Creating a door, was definitely out of the question, it would be far too suspicious and would definitely rouse the old coot.

After some thinking, he decided to create a crack in the sphere. He knew that this would only further the destruction of his raw magical sphere, but it also had the advantage of fooling the old coot into thinking that he had caused the crack in the sphere. This would also be a much more subtle way of accessing Dumbledore's memories. It was much easier for him to create a crack in the sphere. Harry didn't have to push against his magic. All he had to do was to call some of it back to him since it had a natural affinity for him at any rate.

Harry carefully called some of his magic until he saw crack forming like a spider's web. He allowed the crack to grow until he was sure that it was big enough to allow his conscious mind to slip through. He made his mind tune out all emotions, and pictured a serene desert landscape under a full moon. He then allowed his conscious mind to push through the crack and gently float down through the layers of Dumbledore's subconscious. Harry was careful to not apply any pressure. He soon found himself absorbing interesting bits of information.

Harry smiled to himself. He now knew the coordinates to Dumbledore's manor. The old boy must have been thinking of home. He was now able to pick up bits of information relating to Potter. How very interesting, Harry thought to himself. If Dumbledore thought that his little plan to make him drop his lawsuit would work, he was severely delusional. Harry also realized that Dumbledore was asleep, however he felt the old man start to wake. Harry knew he had to get out, he had counted on Dumbledore being asleep, and his gamble had paid off, however with Dumbledore being consciously awake, he stood a real chance of getting noticed. Harry knew his own limitations, and he was not stupid enough to underestimate the old coot. Harry felt that he had enough information to come up with a counter plan.

Harry carefully pulled his consciousness back through the crack and inside his own magical sphere. He then made his way back through the temporary link and after what seemed a long trip, made his way back into his own mind. He made sure that the link was completely destroyed and catalogued the information he had gained. He realized how tired he was and thanked god that his first class would not be until 1:00 pm. He didn't have his schedule yet, but Harry was still able to get the info on his future timetable from Dumbledore himself. No doubt the old coot had a say in it. Well, he thought, it looks like I'll be dealing with Snape after all. Through the link Harry found out that Snape was going to teach DADA. What fucking joy, he though. Well no one said you had to attend class. With that thought and others, Harry fell into a deep sleep.

Xiana woke up at around seven o'clock the following morning. She turned and looked at her husband. She couldn't help herself and smiled watching him sleep. She could see his brows furrow, it looked like he was trying to solve a difficult problem. Even in sleep she though, her husband seemed to carry the balance of the world on his shoulders. Xiana remembered not hearing Harry come in last night. He must have been busy at school she thought. She normally woke up earlier than this, but she could tell that her body was changing, and that it needed more rest. She subconsciously brought her hand to her belly and started rubbing it. Xiana felt a lot more randy which she attributed to being pregnant; then again she was just deluding herself. Truth be told, she simply enjoyed making love to her husband. He was so considerate of her needs and pleasure.

With that thought she looked at the clock again and knew she had tons of time. Xiana began kissing her husbands lips, and then moved to his neck. She could hear Harry starting to moan. With a smirk she moved down to his muscled chest and started kissing his nipples. Harry began to moan harder. Xiana slowly moved her way to his abs. By this time her husband had a full erection. She started to slowly stoke his phallus, after more moans on his part she straddled him and started rubbing herself against his erection. By this time she was moaning herself. This went on for quite a while, she looked down on her husband when his eyes flicked open and Xiana noticed a very hungry look in his eyes. She decided to properly greet him and said "Hello beloved, how are you on this fine morning." She teased.

Harry was now fully awake and in the heat of passion. He looked at his gorgeous wife with a huge grin on his face and said, "I am in heaven I think. This is far better than an alarm clock any day, love."

Harry started to slowly kiss his wife's neck and slowly worked his way to her breast. He gently stroked and massaged her nipples. He brought his lips to her nipples and suckled and teased the tips with his tongue. He could feel his wife rubbing herself against his erection at a much quicker pace. He kept on kissing her nipples and suddenly felt his wife grab his erection and guide it inside her. She slowly lowered herself to allow her muscles to adjust to his size, and began riding him. Due to the angle of penetration, Harry was now massaging her G spot to his wife's great satisfaction he could see. He noticed his wife biting her lower lip and moaning with desire. He kept the rhythm going until his wife climaxed. He followed suite not long after and came inside her. Xiana could feel his rhythmic pulsing. When they were done she pulled out and collapsed on his chest.

God it felt so good making love to her husband. She looked at him and noticed a look of concern and said, "What's wrong love?" she said with apprehension.

Harry looked at her and looked like he was debating with himself and finally said, "Making love like this is not going to hurt the baby is it?" Xiana looked at him and burst out laughing.

Harry looked at her with a slight hurt on his face, Xiana was quick to notice it, and came over and kissed him solidly on the lips, she pulled away and gave him a long explanation about sex and pregnancy. She also described a woman's libido during pregnancy and what they could do while having sex. Harry looked back at her and said "I sure have a lot to learn, don't I?"

Xiana replied "No worries love, you will eventually figure it all out." She looked at him with a smirk. He looked back at her and smirked himself. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her onto her back and began tickling her. Xiana went into a fit of giggles and finally called uncle. Harry smiled and released her from her torture. She grabbed him by the head and forced him down to a passionate kiss. Harry returned the gesture with equal passion. After some serious kissing, they broke apart.

Harry managed to say, "Well love it's time to get going as much as I hate to do it." Harry sighed and went for a quick shower. Xiana waited for Harry to finish and then went to get herself ready. When they were done with their morning ritual, they both portkeyed to the Potter castle and had breakfast with Remus. Over breakfast they all discussed the day's agenda.

It was decided that Xiana and Remus would go investigate a failed muggle newspaper agency in London. That particular agency was not too far from the Leaky Caldron. The idea was to buy newspaper agency, renovate, print and shock the shit and complacency out of the wizarding world. According to Sun-Tzu the war of words is just as important as physical battle. There is only one way to fight propaganda and it's with irrefutable information. If negotiations went smooth, the Scorpion Sorcerer was going to have a vehicle to educate the inbred purebloods.

Harry explained that he had found the perfect place to train his troops. He told them about the Chamber of Secrets, and what his plans were. He also told them about his little excursion into Dumbledore's mind the previous night and the information he had gathered. Remus was the first one to say

"Cub, will you be able to get back inside the old coot's head in the future?" Harry looked at Remus hopeful expectation and was forced to let him down.

Harry replied, "Sorry Moony, but this was a one time shot. I noticed that he has almost completed purging his mind of my raw magical energy. I was forced to crack open the last remnants of my magical sphere that I put in his head in August in order to gather bits of information. I have no doubt that by this weekend, he will have purged the last bits of my raw magical energy. No matter though, I have the information I need to screw his plans." Harry finished with a smirk on his face. Remus and Xiana looked at each other, and knew perfectly well what that smirk meant. They simply smiled at each other and went back to eating their breakfast.

Remus was looking at his cub, and knew damn well that Harry had developed a devious plan to deal with Snape and the Headmaster. One thing Remus knew for sure, underestimating his cub was an extremely dangerous proposition at best. They finished breakfast and Harry went to find Dobby and Winky for some information. Harry wanted to make sure that the other meteoric sites were mined of Naquadah. He would extract the Naquadria at a later time once he had the Naquadah mined. Naquadria was locked in the Naquadah anyway. He didn't want to send Dobby and Winky since they needed to build more trunk manors. He wanted to know if there were more elves who wanted to be bonded and get out of Hogwarts. He would ask Dobby to find any free elves who wanted to be bonded again.

Harry entered the kitchen and spotted Dobby. Dobby looked up and immediately dropped what he was doing and came over to greet his master. Dobby looked at his master and said, "Hello Master Harry Potter greatest wizard sir, how can Dobby assist you sir?"

Harry smirked at his elf's antic and said "Dobby, do you know if there are more elves looking for work. I need my top elf's to look after Xiana, the castle and building new trunk manors. I have other work that needs doing, and I only trust elves to do this work properly." Harry finished and saw the deep look of respect that Dobby was giving him. Harry could see his favourite elf scrunch up his face and think hard. After what seemed like a minute, Dobby came out of his trance and said,

"Master sir, Dobby knows of at least four more elf's that be needing a new home and master sir. I would be glad to contact them for you sir?"

Harry replied," Dobby I would be very happy to meet them. I will get in touch with you this Friday and we can meet them one by one, how does this sound? "

Dobby replied, "That is being perfect master Harry Potter sir. I believe that they will join our group sir." Harry got down on his knee and gave the little elf and quick hug. His little buddy had watery eyes. Harry really loved Dobby. He knew that he would always have a very special connection to the elf. Harry could see and feel the deep-seated loyalty emanating from Dobby. Harry mused that elves had to be the most under estimated magical creatures in the wizarding world. Once again in his eyes, the wizarding world was showing its utter stupidity.

Harry thought that if he won this war, the elves were going to have a much different deal than they currently have in the wizarding world. With this thought in mind he went to greet Anubis and Hedwig. When he reached them he petted Hedwig and asked her if she would like to stay at Hogwarts with the other owls. She hooted showing him that she would indeed like to stay at Hogwarts for a while. He was going to apparate with her to Hogwarts later this morning. Harry then turned to Anubis and said.

_**sss **_Hello great one, would you like to come with me to Hogwarts today? _**sss**_

_**sss**_ Yeesss masssteer, I would welcome the action _**sss**_

Harry smiled down at his friend. Anubis was very straightforward. He needed to ask him another question.

_**sss**_ Great one, do you know how many more of your kind there are and where can I find them. We need to repopulate your species, and I think you would welcome companionship _**sss**_

Annubis raised his head and nodded towards his master in pleasure, and said _**sss**_ Massteer, I know where to go in the great heat to find my kind. _**sss**_

Harry replied, _**sss **_Very well, at the end of this month we will go late at night and find them and bring them here. _**sss**_

Harry felt that he owed it to the ancients to keep their work from going extinct. In any case, there was a very good chance that his children would be able to speak parseltongue, and being bonded to a temple snake would give them a huge advantage in security and they would need one of them to learn high parseltongue and the ancient dark arts when the time came. With this thought, he picked up Anubis and wrapped him around his torso. Harry's next item on his agenda was to contact his hacker friends. Harry had been thinking some more about Voldemort's finances and came to the conclusion that snake face had to be doing business in the muggle world somehow to finance his war. The wizarding population was not big enough to garner the finances needed to support a full blown war effort.

If Harry knew one thing, it was that Voldemort was as sick as they come. Any business he was into would most likely be illegal and hurt muggles at the same time. Voldemort was many things, but stupid was not one of them. Most of his illegal money would most likely be deposited in secure muggle banks. The money also needed to be laundered before being brought back to Gringotts. He most likely had a top secure vault at Gringotts under a pseudo name. Trying to get information from the Goblins concerning large vaults was impossible.

They were completely indifferent to wizards, and their ministry. Goblin rules applied to the wizarding population equally. Making an appeal that he was looking for a vault belonging to Voldemort wouldn't matter one damn bit to them. Harry understood why that was, if they started pandering to one side or another, they would lose credibility and profits. To a Goblin, that was hitting two major pillars of their beliefs.

Harry needed to first find out what business Voldemort was into, find out who the players were, where the money was located, and which Gringotts vault he was laundering the money into. Once he had this information, he needed to eliminate the players, drain Voldemort's accounts and shut down his businesses. The plan was simple; however its execution was going to be a real bitch. He went to his computer and hooked up to the Internet. Once he was hooked up, he sent an e-mail to his hacker contact.

_E-mail_

_TechnoMage_

_I have another little job that requires very specific skills. I need you to assign some of your members to doing a little research for me. I have already sent you £20,000 pounds via mail order. It is sitting at your drop box. If you need more, let me know. I need you to research the Internet for some shady businesses. I need to know what they do, where they are located, and if you are able to crack into their computer system. If you are able to crack their systems could you please copy any information available and send it to me via e-mail. When you are done get back to me. To get you started look under the following pseudo name:_

_Riddle, Voldemort, Marvolo, Salazar, Basilisk, Muggle, Dark Arts, and Slytherin. If you dig up anything, I need contacts and addresses if you can get them. Don't worry as per our agreement; I have used your program to encrypt this message. You know how to contact me; I'll be checking my e-mail regularly._

_Good Luck_

_Sincerely_

_Scorpio_

Remus happened to be passing by the library when he saw Harry playing with that machine of his. He came over and said, "Harry, are you still playing with that machine again?"

Harry looked back at Remus and replied, "Mooney, one thing I learned this summer was that this is much more than a simple machine. This machine provides information, and knowledge. Knowledge is power. I'll find sometime and introduce you to the muggle Internet system. It is far more efficient than owls Remus. With this machine I have knowledge available at my fingertip from around the world."

Remus perked up at that and said, "Well, I have always been interested in muggle inventions. This look's like a good one to know." Remus told Harry he needed to get going and walked off to find Xiana.

Harry sent his e-mail and made his way up to his master bedroom to get dressed. He decided on a pair of Armani charcoal pants and a royal blue silk shirt with silver images of a stag, grim and a wolf. He changed his earring for a sapphire and put his katana in place with a disillusion charm. He was wearing his basilisk boots. His decided to leave his hair in a ponytail and cap the end with a silver scorpion stinger. He took one last look in the mirror and liked what he saw. He decided to leave his basilisk robe for today. He could always apparate back to get it if he needed it.

Harry decided to apparate into moaning Myrtle's bathroom. No one ever went there and it was close to the great hall. He pictured the bathroom and in the blink of an eye he found himself standing by the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Harry smiled and knew that if Dumbledore ever found out that he could apparate within Hogwarts, he would shit himself. Harry exited the bathroom and made his way to the great hall. The moment he entered, he noticed quite a few people turn towards him. He looked at some of them and smiled and others he sneered at.

Harry looked around and noticed that he was a bit early, however the food was still laid out on the table. With that in mind he made his way to the Gryffindor table and sat down. He decided on some chicken and roast potatoes with gravy. Hogwarts had a very healthy meal plan. Halfway toward his meal, he noticed Ginny coming to the table. She noticed him and gave him an awkward smile. Harry looked at her and knew from looking into her face that she desperately wanted to talk to him. Harry suddenly knew that he had to talk to her and explain some things. Ginny was petite but she was a powerful witch and had lots of potential. Harry had to make a concerted effort to win her in his camp. Everybody that was denied to Voldemort or Dumbledore only re-enforced his cause. Harry decided to strike up a conversation by saying.

"Hi Ginny, come over here I have not seen you since my last meeting with the bird club."

Ginny smiled at his description of the order of the Phoenix. Truth be told, after the revelations concerning Dumbledore and Harry, her sympathy actually laid with Harry. The problem was her family. She did not want to become a black sheep. That being said, she owed Harry a life debt. God she was so frustrated with everything. She needed to talk to someone about this. Why was life so damn complicated she thought. She made up her mind and said.

"Hi Harry, it's really good to see you. How are you holding up?"

Harry replied, "I'm fine Ginny, I find that personal freedom really agrees with me."

Ginny returned, "I wouldn't know about that Harry, I have not been paroled by my family yet."

Harry noticed a real sour look in her face when she mentioned that last bit. Harry used his Legillimens ability and carefully sorted through her surface memories. After a few seconds he pulled back deep in thought. Harry now understood the deep conflict that Ginny was going through. She loved her parents very much and wanted to believe them when they agreed with Dumbledore. Her head and soul told her that Dumbledore was wrong for betraying Harry like he did. She thought that if there were other members of her family that thought like her, then she wouldn't feel bad about standing up to her parents. Harry decided to help her out and said.

"Ginny, I can tell from your face that you have conflicting thoughts regarding me. Why don't you write to Bill? You need to sort out your feelings, and I think Bill can help you do that. Bill knows a lot more about what is going on and I think he can help you sort out your feelings. Once you have talked to him, come and see me next week. I am sure we will have lots to discuss." Harry was about to ask her another question when the traitors decided to show up.

Ron was talking to Hermione as they made their way to their table when he saw Ginny talking to the next would-be Dark Lord. Dumbledore seemed to hint that Potter was turning dark. Who was he to question one of the greatest wizards of the age? Ron felt that Potter was being a coward for not accepting his fate. Who would not want to save the wizarding world and go down in history as a hero he thought. He could protect them all by his sacrifice. How dare Potter question Dumbledore's judgement on this issue? He looked at Hermione and from the look on her face she seemed to be thinking the same thing. Ron knew that Hermione respected Dumbledore's judgement in these matters.

Ron was fuming by the time he reached his baby sister. How dare she talk to him? He finally said.

"Ginny get away from him this instant. Mother would not be pleased to find out that you were talking to the next Dark Lord." Ron plastered and evil smirk on his face and decided to taunt his ex-best friend. He was going to try and see if he could get him a detention. He was a prefect after all, he was sure Dumbledore would agree.

Ginny turned around red in the face and said, "Ron, I'll talk to anyone I want, do I make myself clear! You are not my guardian, and you better remember that, or you will find out real quick what my modified bat bogey can do." Ginny was furious by now. How dare he of all people tell her what to do, she thought.

Ron sneered back at her and replied, "I may not be your guardian, but if you don't want a howler from mom, I strongly suggest that you not talk to him."

Ginny was now seething. She stood up and slapped her brother across the face as hard as she could, much to Ron's surprise. Ginny said "Don't you dare black mail me brother dearest." She spat the last words at him. She turned around and stormed out of the great hall. By this time the little confrontation was starting to gather some onlookers.

Harry looked at Ron and smirked at him, before going back to his meal. At this point Ron was furious. The thing that pissed him off the most was to be bested by Potter.

Ron narrowed his eyes and in a lisping manner said, "You stay away from my sister if you know what's good for you. I'll not have her be corrupted by a coward such as you. "

Harry slowly looked up at his former best friend and replied, "Gee Ron, how long did it take you to come up with those lines. I'll bet you stayed up all night rehearsing that one, after all we all know that you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed. Now if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the beaver next to you must have helped you. Yeah, that's it. Now if you don't mind, I am trying to eat my meal in peace, so if you don't want to get hurt make like the wind and blow away."

Harry went back to his food. He was eating with his left and made sure to keep his right hand underneath the table where he slowly managed to pull one of his new wands out of his right boot. Harry made sure to not let anyone see him. He just waited for Ron to eventually loose it and curse him. Harry had a little surprise for him.

By this time Ron was fuming, and Harry noticed that Neville, Luna, Blaise and Brianna were all present. If things got out of hand, he needed witnesses. He made sure to take a quick peek at Snape who was looking at him, as if expecting something. Harry turned his head and looked at Ron with a smirk on his face, which he knew would only infuriate Ron.

Ron's face by now had taken on an almost puce like color. Ron looked down at the insufferable bastard and pulled out his wand and said, "Twenty points from Gryffindor. You are going to apologize to Hermione or so help me god I am going to let you have it."

Harry just looked at Ron and shaking his head with a smirk on his face and replied, "Carrot head, why don't you put the stick away, you are only going to blow some brain cells trying to come up with a decent curse." Before Ron could blow his hair off, Hermione put a hand on Ron's arm and kept him from hexing Harry. Harry knew what was coming next. Hermione replied in her usual know it all tone and attitude.

"You have changed Harry. There was a time where you would have done the right thing over the easy thing. There was a time when you would have risked your life for us. There is still a chance for you if you come back to the order. All can be forgotten. Dumbledore is not going to try to sacrifice you now. We can train you to properly face the Dark Lord. Do what's best for the wizarding world Harry. Listen to your conscience, you know deep down that I am right about this."

Harry looked at her straight in the eye and then started laughing as hard as he could. Hermione looked like she had been slapped in the face. Finally Harry got himself under enough control and managed to say with a sneer on his face.

"Gee Hermione, how much time did you spend with that old bastard to come up with your little speech. It's obvious I have to spell it out for you. First, don't worry, I'll take care of Voldemort because I learned long ago that the cowards of the wizarding world will never stand up for themselves and fight for their beliefs. When I am done with Voldemort however I'll make sure that the rest of the wizarding world remembers me. Second, I will never again allow ANYONE to control me, especially that bastard. Third, I suggest you take your pompous, self-righteous, know-it-all fucking self and get the hell away from me. Make sure to take your inbred pureblood boyfriend with you."

Harry heard Anubis through his mind link telling him that fire head was about to curse him. Harry mentally smirked at Anubis description of Ron.

As predictable as the rotation of the earth, Ron Weasley blew his hair off, and launched a _flipendo _curse towards Harry. Harry expected this to happen and managed to layer two spells, and silently cast _protego_ and _merde-effreno. _Harry was very thankful that he was able to cast most of his spells silently.

Ron's spell hit Harry's shield, and was throw back toward Ron with Harry's second spell disguised in the _flippendo's_ signature. Ron was hit square in the chest, and was thrown back over the Hufflepuff table and landed on his back. The next thing that happened was Ron loosing control of his bowels. The stench became immediate and overpowering. Some people began loosing their dinners. Hanna Abbot and Christine Johnson were the first. Harry made sure to quickly slip his new wand back inside his right boot.

Harry looked around and saw the shocked look on many people's faces. The next thing that Harry knew was that McGonagall and Snape were by his side. McGonagall with a deep frown and tight lip manage to utter with great difficulty.

"Mr. Potter what is the meaning of this disgraceful behaviour."

Harry replied, "My dear professor, you witnessed the whole thing, surely you have an idea of what happened, or has the headmaster given strict orders to turn a blind eye to attacks made on a student who happens to have Potter as a last name?" Harry sneered.

Snape was the first one to reply, "See Minerva, the little brat is no better than his useless father. His ego is just as big. It's a good thing that he is no longer with us, I don't think that our world could handle two gargantuan egos at the same time" He spat.

Harry by now had had enough, it was time to make these useless peons feel a little pain. Harry brought out his dementor replicating aura and concentrated on Snape. The effects were immediate. Everyone around Harry began feeling cold, and those nearest to him began feeling as if they would never be happy again. The biggest effect was on professor Snape. The man's face was contorted as if he was remembering a horrific experience. Snape fell down on one knee. His hands were balled into fist and were pressing against his temple.

After about twenty seconds, McGonagall who was by now shaking horribly managed to get Harry's attention by yelling for him to stop. Harry stopped projecting his dementor aura and looked at her straight face. Minerva could see his green orbs glowing with power. She managed to regain enough control of herself and weakly told him to go see the Headmaster. By now her breath was fast and shallow. Harry stood up leaving the rest of the hall gaping at him and at Snape's almost unconscious form.

Everyone was shocked except Neville, Luna, Blaise and Brianna. Blaise already knew why it was a very bad idea to piss off his brother in law. Blaise looked at his sister and her eyes told him that she thought the same thing. Blaise noticed that Harry didn't even draw his wand out and yet had over a third of the Gryffindor table along with two teachers, incapacitated. Now that Blaise thought about it, he remembered seeing something similar during Harry's battle in France. Blaise wondered if he could learn to do this. In battle this could be a definite advantage.

Harry left the table with a sneer and made his way out of the great hall to go talk to the meddling fool. Harry had not meant to let things get this out of hand, but where Snape was concerned it became an almost impossible task to keep one's cool. That was one bastard he was going to take out of action real soon he promised himself. Harry finally made his way to the headmaster's office. He stood in front of the gargoyle and realized that McGonagall never gave him the password. The last thing he wanted to do was to keep guessing the stupid password.

He searched his memory from his mind link the previous night and realized that he already knew the password. Harry stood in front of the statue and said, "Smarties". The stone statues moved out of the way and Harry climbed the stairs. As he approached the top of the stairs, he realized that the headmaster was already sitting there. They left almost at the same time, Harry began thinking that there might be another secret passage way that did not even show up on the Marauders map. This might be worth investigating. Harry was pretty certain that it was not apparition on the headmaster's part. After all according to "Hogwarts, a History" it was supposed to be impossible to apparate within Hogwarts.

Albus Dumbledore looked at the young man entering his office, and could not help feeling angry at how this young man had completely destroyed his carefully laid out plan. Valuable pawns had been sacrificed to get the young man where he wanted him, and in the space of one summer it had all been for nothing. Now he even admitted to himself that he was scrambling for damage control, and so far was not succeeding very well.

Albus had initially counted on his former best friends to help bring him back into the fold, but it seemed that the young mans loathing at their betrayal ran far deeper than he ever imagined. Albus for the first time had a really good look at the young man and noticed how much he had changed. Long gone was the scrawny young boy who left his fifth year. The person standing in front of him was confident, muscular, and exuded an aura of power. It seemed that Harry no longer wearing his cousin's cast off.

Albus also realized that he could no longer get an idea of what he was thinking. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of their last confrontation back at Grimmauld place. Upon closer inspection he noticed an earring in the shape of a scorpion made of sapphire quality gemstone. Albus was beginning to get an uneasy feeling at this point. He decided to wait a little bit and then ask him about it. There had to be some significance to this. Albus finally decided to break the ice and said.

"Well Harry, it would seem that you are off to an explosive start to your school year. I would have thought that you would have waited at least until the end of this month before getting into trouble. Now we need to discuss what to do about your attack on Mr. Malfoy last night and on Mr. Weasley and your professors during lunch time."

Harry did not believe that he could hate anyone more than Voldemort. However, the headmaster was now a close second to be sure. Harry knew that the headmaster was playing his little games, and was going to try to get a confession out of him. After what seemed like a minute, Harry said.

"My dear Headmaster, It would seem that again you did not bother gathering the facts and simply assumed that I was guilty or you simply choose to ignore the evidence. I know you were in the great hall just now, and you know that I never raised my wand. It was one of your prefect puppets who drew his wand on me, remember?" Harry waited a moment to let his words sink through.

Harry continued by saying, "As for your precious potions masters, he insulted my parents and I still did not raise my wand to him. Yet, you sit here accusing me. I wonder what you are really on about headmaster, perhaps you are trying to find a way to remove my leverage over you and are willing to use any transgressions to do it. Now headmaster, if we could please dispense with the bullshit, I find that I no longer have any patience with these fake pleasantries. "

Albus saw that Harry would not easily buckle under pressure. Perhaps the boy could be angered into revealing some of his secrets. Finally, Albus replied with a sickly smile.

"You are being very eloquent in your arguments Harry. However, the fact remains that you still attacked a teacher even if you were not using a wand. If you could explain what you did, perhaps I could find myself forgetting that this unfortunate incident ever occurred."

Harry replied, "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I'm sorry headmaster but a true sorcerer never reveals his secrets. Before you go any further with your implied threats, I'll tell you right now that I will go straight to the board of governors and present them with my memories of the event. That with a copy of my bank documents showing your transgression in regards to the ancient and noble house of Potter should be more than enough to get you kicked out of this school as headmaster and maybe as chief warlock." Harry said the last bit with a feral grin on his face.

Dumbledore's face suddenly went white and was taken back by the sheer hate he saw in Harry's eyes. After a minute he finally said, "You have changed Harry, and not for the better in my opinion. Is there no love left in your heart Harry? Because you know as well as I do that this is the first step towards the dark side."

Harry stared hard at the headmaster and started chuckling and finally managed to say, "Well, that's a little rich coming from the so called great light wizard sitting across from me. I wonder headmaster if any of your indiscretions ever came to light how many people would still think of you as a light wizard. Let's face it, deep down you are no different than Voldemort. You play people as if they were pawns on a chessboard. If there is one thing that I condone my parents for, it is for listening to your advice in the first place. They trusted you without question, to their ultimate downfall. I have no intention of repeating their mistakes. Since we both know very well what your ultimate plan was for me, you don't have a leg to stand on calling yourself a light wizard. So by all means, call me dark all you want; I would rather be called dark than blindly follow a semi senile, manipulative, egotistical, power hungry maniac like you."

Harry could see the fury building in the headmaster's face, and to add insult to injury Harry could hear Phineas in the background hooting and hollering at the headmaster telling him how badly he had been put in his place by a sixteen-year-old brat. Harry had a wolfish grin on his face. The headmaster turned around and yelled at Phineas to shut up or else. Dumbledore turned towards Harry and stood while pointing a finger in Harry's direction and said.

"I will not be talked to in this manner by the likes of you. You will show me respect."

Harry was about to reply when Fawkes suddenly left his perch and landed on Harry's shoulder much to Dumbledore's dismay. Harry looked at Fawkes, smiled and replied, "Temper, temper mon Capitaine. In my eyes respect is earned and not blindly given due to someone's titles."

Albus realized that the boy had skilfully turned the tables on him by baiting him and making him loose his temper. My, my Albus thought, what a conniving little Slytherin you are becoming my dear Harry. The headmaster made a great show of sitting down and taking deep breaths as if he was dealing with a way ward child.

Albus decided to change tack and with a smile he said, "Please accept my apology for my previous indiscretion, these last two weeks have been a trifle difficult for me. Now perhaps you could shed some light on your relationship with this Scorpion Sorcerer. Severus witnessed the Scorpion Sorcerer fighting death eaters at your house not too long ago. You are also wearing an earring in the shape of a scorpion?"

Harry chuckled and pointed towards his scar and said, "He can't get through to me any more, but that doesn't mean I haven't tried getting through to him. The best times are when he's especially happy or angry. I can sometimes break through his barriers undetected. I saw what happened at Azkaban this summer."

He dropped his hand and shook his head. "This is just going to continue, headmaster. Voldemort is going to keep gaining new recruits, and few or none of his men are going to be taken out of the equation. It's no wonder you people were losing last time."

Dumbledore's frown deepened. "Harry-"

Harry's face hardened and said, "Do not ever call me Harry again. It's Mr. Potter to you."

Dumbledore frowned and looked into Harry's eyes and said, "Very well Mr. Potter. Now as I was saying" But he was interrupted by Harry once more.

Harry wouldn't hear it. "No, headmaster, I know what you will say. The truth is that under Fudge's incompetence and you trying to take over St-Peter's job at the pearly gates we are going to lose this war. The time has come for change, and the Scorpion Sorcerer is just the wizard to do it. Voldemort and his Death Eaters are not criminals to be punished with time in prison; they are soldiers on the opposing side of a war. You would do well to take a good long look at wars in the muggle world. When they fight a war, they understand that victory lies in defeating your opponent, not imprisonin_g_ him. Prisoners are taken, yes, but you cannot hope to capture an entire enemy force. It's an impossible task, and Voldemort's was just going to keep gaining supporters until the Scorpion Sorcerer showed up to scare them off. Under Fudge's and your actions, all they saw ahead of them if they got caught is a slap on the wrist and a short term in prison. Under the Scorpion Sorcerer actions they fear death and mutilation"

"Dear boy," Dumbledore protested, "We cannot sink to their level. If we do, we are no better than them."

"We are a free people, headmaster," Harry replied. "But if we are not willing to fight, to die, and yes, even to kill to defend that freedom, then we have no right to being free." Harry looked straight into Dumbledore's eyes and said with as much conviction as possible "You may not be willing to go that far, but the Scorpion Sorcerer is. I am willing to follow him and use any weapons necessary to defeat those bastards, even using the Dark Arts if necessary. I believe a muggle by the name of General Douglas MacArthur once said something to the effect of, ""It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it." A fitting quote don't you think."

Dumbledore stared at the young man for a moment, then rose and said, "I can only ask you to please reconsider where you are heading Harry. You know how important you are to the wizarding world. I would be ashamed if they thought that you were destined to be the next Dark Lord. Here is your time table. I will make sure that no disciplinary actions are taken against you this time. However, consider this a fair warning that I will no longer be lenient towards you."

Harry recognized this as a dismissal and picked up his time table and headed towards the door just as he was about to turn the door handle he turned around and said, "Just so you know, if I see for one second that any of your teachers are subjugating me to unfair treatment I will officially pull out of this school and hire private tutors until my NEWT's come about. I will then go to the board of governors and have you removed as headmaster. As for the rest of YOUR wizarding world I frankly don't give a shit if they burn in hell. Perhaps, when Voldemort has exterminated all of these cowards, I'll step in and take care of him. This way I kill two birds with one stone. "

Albus fell back in his chair and ran his hands over his face. He was getting a serious headache. He now knew that Harry was lost for good. There was no hope of getting him back under his control. He heard Phineas say, "You have made a real mess of it now Dumbledore. Our world will be lucky to survive this catastrophe."

Albus replied with raised eyebrow, "Maybe the best way to handle this is to let him take care of Voldemort. When he has completed his task we will make our move in and contain him."

Phineas replied, "You keep on believing that. Personally I think you will become a portrait much sooner than you think." He left his portrait and a very annoyed and a very pissed off headmaster.

Harry was walking down the hall and looking at his watch, he noticed that his Charms class was already over. He had a transfiguration class at three, so he decided to go outside and take an in depth look at Hogwarts grounds and memorize the layout.

_**London East Side close to the Thames River**_

Earlier that morning, Xiana and Remus apparated just outside the building they were going to inspect. The building in question was home to a tabloid paper that had gone out of business three months ago. Apparently all of the printing equipment and computer systems were fully operational. They were here to meet the real estate agent in order to inspect the premises. If they liked what they saw, then Xiana would make the decision to buy the place. This was part of Harry's elaborate plan to jump start the war effort. Harry wanted to start a propaganda war with Voldemort, by fighting his lies with facts.

Xiana was looking at the front of the building when she felt nauseous and ran to the side alley. Remus was concerned and followed her there when he saw Xiana vomiting in a trash can. He went to her and cast a cooling charm on her, knowing that it would help. He then conjured a cold ice tea and gave it to her. She took the drink and thanked him. Remus just smiled and said "The little tyke is active I see."

She smirked and said, "Just like the father, a real pain in the butt sometimes."

Remus laughed his head off. He told her the story about Lily's pregnancy and had Xiana laughing by the end of his story. She took his arm and they made their way back to the front of the building. By the time they got back they noticed a woman looking at her watch. They approached the woman and introduced themselves. After some short pleasantry they made their way inside the average size building and began an in depth tour of the premises. After about an hour, Xiana asked the woman if she could talk to her partner for about ten minutes.

The agent was more than accommodating and Xiana took Remus to one of the offices to discuss their proposal. There was no doubt in Xiana's mind that this place was ideal. For one thing the address of the building was 13 Royal Street. Most people in the wizarding world were fairly superstitious. If the building were put under Fidelius charm, no one would think it the wiser if they found no building between twelve and fourteen. No one in the wizarding world would build a building and put thirteen as an address.

The second thing she liked about the place was that it was very modern and had state of the art equipment. The place was not big, but it had a very cozy feeling about it. They could print out as many papers as they liked. They only thing they needed to do was to copy the duplicating charms and find out the Daily Prophet's distribution listings. Between the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler, they could reach a good majority of the wizarding population. The Building itself was in a very well hidden area and the asking price was very reasonable. She would help Harry give everyone a crash course with muggle computers. She had learned from Harry how useful the muggle contraptions could be.

After listing the pros and cons, Remus agreed with her that they should make an offer. If the deal went through, they would pay cash and have Harry cast the dark Fidelius on the premises as he was the only one who could do it. From then on, their operation would be ultra secret and well protected. Luna, Xiana, Remus and Harry would make up the bulk of the editorial staff, but they had other people in mind that could definitely contribute to the paper.

With their mind made up they went to the agent and offered £1.3 million pounds for the building and its facilities. The agent looked quite ecstatic and told them that they would be receiving the deeds via their e-mail address later this afternoon. Xiana was fascinated with muggle technology. Harry was right, muggles were definitely far more advanced in certain areas over wizard kind. Learning from Harry, she had developed a very healthy respect for muggle technology. In many ways they were superior to wizarding means. Of course on many other issues they were remarkably backwards. After signing a plethora of papers, they bid the agent farewell and Xiana apparated to her father's law office. She brought him up to speed on current news and gave him the muggle law contacts. Remus told her that he would meet her back home. Remus said he was going to pay a visit to the twins. Remus had a feeling that the twins would be sympathetic to Harry's cause.

Remus apparated into one of Diagon alley's transit points, and made his way to Wizards Wizarding Wheeze's. After about ten minutes of walking, Remus entered the shop and found himself looking at all of the shelves. The variety of pranks and jokes was truly astounding. Harry was right, the twins were absolute genii. Some of their inventions could be tailored to their uses. After what must have been fifteen minutes, Remus noticed that one of the twins was approaching him with a huge grin on his face.

Fred came over and yelled, "Professor Lupin, what an honour to see you in our modest abode."

Remus smirked and replied, "Well, the pleasure is all mine. Please call me Remus or Moony. I have not been your professor in over two years."

Fred looked at him and frowned, "Moony, I remember that name from somewhere, but I can't place it for some reason."

Remus answered back, "Well, my brothers and I used to be well known in my days, maybe you heard of my name from some third party."

Fred looked at him and shook his head, " No, I pretty sure that you were never mentioned by any of our acquaintances." Fred looked at him deeper and finally a grin came to his face and said.

"I remember your name. It was on the Marauder's map. How in the world did you manage to get your name on one of our most prized possessions?" He enquired.

Remus smiled and said, "Well, I would think that being one of the four Marauders and the charms expert of our group was enough to get my name on that map. Creating that map, proved to be quite a challenge but we managed to pull it off in the end."

Fred looked at Remus as if he was seeing the almighty God. His mouth kept opening and closing but no words came out. Finally Fred bellowed, "George, get your butt out here right now." A few minutes later George came out and said, "Brother Dearest, I have an important potion brewing, what ever is the problem?"

Fred smirked at his brother and said, "Well it seems that our dear professor Lupin has been holding out on us. Right before you my dear brother, is none other than Moony, as in aka the Marauder. "

George looked like he was about to faint. He looked at his brother and together they went down on their knees and hailed Remus as one of their Gods. Remus couldn't help himself at the twins' behaviour and burst out laughing. The twins got back on their feet and George managed to say.

"You must obviously tell us who the other three marauders were. Please tell us." They begged.

Remus took pity on them and replied, "Well Prongs was aka James Potter, Padfoot was Sirius Black, and Wormtail was aka Peter Pettigrew." The last he spat the words. Fred and George looked at each with a look that said they fully understood where the animosity towards Wormtail came from.

Fred said, "Well being that you are one of the Marauders, you get an obvious discount on all merchandise, after all some of these products were copied from some of your guys ideas. Second, what to we owe this fine visit by yours truly."

Remus knew that he had to play his cards real smooth. Remus purged all of his emotions and said, "I am here to talk about Harry, and what Dumbledore did to him. I want to know how you feel about the whole thing."

Fred immediately had a sneer on his face and said, "What we think is that the bloody Order of the Phoenix and the meddling old fool railroaded our partner, that's what we think. To think, that we wanted to join those bloody idiots last year. Thank God, it never came about. I wish we could meet up with Harry to tell him that we believe in him and that we stand by him no matter what. "

George added, "When no one believed in us, Harry was there and supported us. If it weren't for him, all of this would not existent. So if you are asking us where our loyalties lie, then I believe we just gave you our answer."

Remus looked at both twins and saw a determined look in their eyes. After careful consideration he said, "Just so you know. Harry has started training people using far more powerful magic and methods that were ever thought of at Hogwarts. The death of Sirius has affected him greatly. He wants to make sure that all of his friends and every member of his army are able to fight death eaters with weapons that are effective. No matter what you hear, Harry will never be a Dark Lord. He is willing to use and teach the dark arts only to even the playing field. Harry no longer believes in giving mercy to the enemy. Harry extends an offer for you to freely join him. I want to make sure that you understand that there is no pressure here. Harry will still love you just the same if you decide not to join him."

With out a moment's hesitation, both twins said, "We are in. Just let us know what we need to do."

Remus replied, "Don't worry, I'll let Harry know that you are in and he will contact you very soon. For now just carry on as if nothing was out of the ordinary. You must understand that the training you are about to take will give you a whole new definition of magic. The training I went through truly opened my eyes. Harry wants you to know that there is no light or dark magic. There is only magic and intent."

Remus reached in his pocket and threw a diary at them. George caught it and looked at Remus with a frown. Remus smiled and said, "This is my personal diary describing all of the pranks that the Marauder's pulled while at Hogwarts during our stay there."

The look on the twins face was priceless. They had a look that said if they never received any presents for the next five years, it would not matter. In their eyes the diary that they held in their hands was worth a vault full of galleons. Remus laughed and portkeyed back to Potter castle.

_**Gringotts Second Floor Department of Curses and Jinxes Bill Weasley's Office**_

Bill was currently sitting at his desk on his afternoon brake. He was busy reviewing all of the wedding preparations. Fleur and he would be married at the end of this month at Potter castle. Every time he thought of Fleur he had a huge smile on his face. She had a wicked sense of humour. Her laugh always managed to bring a smile on his face. Bill suddenly heard his mail bell go off and watched as a letter with the Hogwarts seal appeared in his box. He broke the seal and started to read, it was from Ginny:

_Hi big brother_

_I just thought I would send you a quick letter to see how you are doing. It's only the second day, here but I can already tell that this year is going to be different, especially after the sorting hat's parting words. I met Harry at lunch today, and he seems different both physically and emotionally. I told him that I was really confused with all that has happened between Ron, Hermione, the order, and him._

_I know deep down in my soul and heart that what the headmaster did to Harry was absolutely despicable. No wonder he feels so betrayed. The ones he thought he could trust were willing to sacrifice him on the altar. I would like to support Harry, but I don't want to disappoint mom and dad also. I don't know what do to big brother, I am so confused, and I feel helpless. _

_Harry suggested that I meet you and talk face to face. Could you come to Hogwarts this Friday afternoon? If you want to come I'll meet you by the lake. Send me a reply._

_Love _

_Ginny_

Bill didn't give his sister's letter a moment's thought. He wrote back his reply saying that he would meet her this Friday afternoon by the lake. War was on their doorstep, and the useless curses they were learning at Hogwarts would get them all killed. The only way to ensure her survival was to give her the tools necessary to properly protect herself.

Bill needed to make his sister understand the difference between evil and dark. He only hoped that it would be enough to sway her. He would also tell her that he had joined Harry, and watch her reaction. If she took it badly then he would be forced to obliviate her. However, Bill's gut told him that Ginny would join him. She was spunky, and a very powerful witch. Bill knew that she would make a very good addition to their side. This would also make it easier for him to help protect her. With that taken care of, he went back to work.

_**The Ministry of Magic**_

Current Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge sat at his desk contemplating a parchment on his latest popularity rating. With a sneer he took out his wand and cast _incendio. _The Gods must have abandoned him. It was bad enough back in June when that bloody brat and the old coot had to go and prove him wrong. In his opinion, it would have been much better to ease the public into the current crisis.

Now the whole public knew that he had been proven wrong by that fat head, idiotic little brat. He knew that Dumbledore thought him to be a bumbling fool, but he would show him. He would prove that Dumbledore was not the only one who could make plans. Cornelius knew that he was not in the same class as the headmaster when it came to making plans, but sometimes a simple strategy was often the best.

As for the Potter brat, his plans to get him to Azkaban could wait. He had a much bigger foe to tackle in the form of the Scorpion Sorcerer. The most frustrating thing about the Scorpion Sorcerer was that there was next to no information on him. Not knowing your enemy led one to make stupid mistakes. Anyone who used dark magic like he did had to be a Dark Lord in the making. Of course to date, all he had done was attack the current Dark Lord's minions.

Subtle information had been sent to the Daily Prophet to portray this Scorpion Sorcerer as the next dark menace, but it seemed that the public had other ideas. The current public mood was not very forgiving, and they saw this Scorpion Sorcerer as a man of action who was not afraid to show force against Voldemort. Cornelius knew that if he wanted to stay in power, he had to show that he could be a man of action too.

This task was even more difficult because of Dumbledore and his blasted Order of the Phoenix. God this game was getting so bloody complicated. Well for now all he could do was gather information from his informants and wait for the right time to strike. Maybe with more information he would be able to formulate a decent plan.

Right now educating the public with light spells, and recruiting more Aurors was good enough. Cornelius smiled to himself, when he thought of his metamorphomagus informant currently in her seventh year at Hogwarts. It was a rare talent indeed to be a metamorphomagus. He had approached Auror Tonks earlier about becoming an informant for him, and she had accepted.

Auror Tonks had replaced a Cindy Donovan from Ravenclaw. Cornelius knew the girl's mother Corrine, from his days at Hogwarts. He approached her about using an informant to sit in lieu of her daughter at Hogwarts. He promised her fair compensation for her cooperation. The money would help the family send their daughter to Salem Academy in North Carolina, in the US. Corrine had readily accepted. Now, Cornelius would keep tabs on Dumbledore and the Potter brat. Since he was the minister of magic, he knew that Auror Tonks would never betray him. Cornelius looked at his watch and decided to go seek Weatherby and see if any information had been passed on from his informant.

_**Hogwarts Headmasters Office**_

Albus was busy going over some correspondence when he heard the familiar knock at his door.

Albus looked up and said, "Come in"

A 7th year girl wearing Ravenclaw robes walked in and said, "Good afternoon, Headmaster."

Albus smiled and replied, "Ah, my dear Nymphadora, how are you settling into Ravenclaw dormitories."

Tonks looked at the headmaster and gave him a dirty look about the use of her first name, but finally managed to say, "Well things seem much easier second time around. Just so you know that bombastic, ignoramus of a minister of magic sent me a courier asking for some information on you and Harry."

Albus replied, "Good, I am glad to see that our plan is coming together. You can tell the minister that I am busy negotiating the new salary scale with our teachers, and you can tell him that Harry is becoming more withdrawn and aggressive towards his classmates."

Tonks looked at the headmaster and said, "As you wish sir." She bid the headmaster farewell and left to go to her next class. Inside she was seething, if that old coot thought that she was going to set up Harry for him he had got another thing coming. Soon it would be time to seek Harry, and let him know that she is in place at Hogwarts.

Harry had set up the whole thing a week after his blow out with Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. She had been appalled that the headmaster had been so willing to sacrifice Harry. If Sirius had been around he would have killed him.

Harry was Sirius' Godson. In truth, she really liked Harry and considered him like a little brother. To top it off, Sirius had made Harry his heir and therefore the new Lord Black. She was part of the Black family and blood comes first. With that she went to transfiguration, which should be as exciting as seeing paint dry. Oh, well it could be a lot worse. For the most part she was safe here instead of chasing death eaters. In essence she mused, she was getting paid for keeping an eye on her adopted little brother and screwing Fudge and the headmasters plans in the process. Talk about luck Tonks mused.

_**Later that Evening Chamber of Secrets**_

Harry was just finishing expanding the right wall and transfiguring the necessary struts. Thank the lord he had his Naquadria wand with him, the power amplification of the wand was truly showing its worth today. Harry had managed to expand the Chamber of Secrets to ten times its original size.

Harry would soon rename the Chamber of Secrets to the scorpion lair. Harry now needed to take care of the serpent statues. He took a close look at them and could not help admiring the statues. The details were truly exquisite. He approached the first statue nearest to him and started to closely examine it. He went to the back of the statue and could make out the scale pattern of the serpent on the stone. Harry was about to banish the statue when he noticed a curious symbol on the hood of the snake.

The marking itself was barely noticeable. The rune must have been burned into the statue and thus was only slightly darker in appearance then the surrounding rock. Harry looked at the engraving for what must have been five minutes trying to remember where he had seen this symbol before. He finally remembered it as a parseltongue rune. Only a parseltongue could activate the rune.

The rune symbol had many meanings. It could stand for an entrance, a door or a hiding place. Harry took his wand and traced the rune symbol with it, while hissing open, which was truth be told the first word that came to his mind. Harry's leapt back when he heard a scraping sound as if a stone mill had been activated. After a minute it stopped. Harry had no idea what just happened. He walked around the statue and looked towards the center of the chamber expecting some sort of trap door to have opened. To his disappointment he found nothing. He was about to banish the statue when he noticed that the statue's mouth was open.

Harry noticed that there was a jewelled box sitting at the bottom of the lower jaw. He was about to climb up and pick up the box, when his gut instinct stopped him. He decided instead to do a magic scan. Harry brought forth his magical aura reading talent to bear and noticed that the box was layered with no less than seven different kinds of curses and jinxes. Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on his inner mind. He started riffling through his carefully ordered folders until he found his magical signature folder.

Harry hoped that he could recognise the curses put on the box and remove them. After what seemed like fifteen minutes had passed, Harry came out of his self induced trance and whistled loudly. There was no doubt in his mind that what he was dealing with was precious. Maybe it was something left over from the founder of the chamber Salazar Slytherin himself. Some of the curses put on the box were ancient and dangerous as hell. Who ever had put these boxes in there wanted to absolutely make sure that no one got a hold of it.

Harry began the difficult task of removing each curses and jinxes one at a time. He had to be very meticulous and take his time. The curses he was dealing with would kill him if he was not careful. Harry noticed that he was putting a lot of power in removing each curse. The last curse involved a blood ritual. After a solid hour of work he was finished and floated the box down to the floor and opened it. Harry found a large egg. It was jet black with green spots on it. Harry immediately recognized it as a Basilisk egg. Harry read the aura around the egg, but now seemed more confused than ever. The egg had a stasis field around it to preserve it for a very, very long time. However, that was not what intrigued him however. The egg seemed to be emanating a magical aura that belonged to Voldemort. Harry looked at his watch and knew that he had to get moving if he wanted to finish his remodelling.

Harry decided to inspect all of the statues and found two more statues with similar parseltongue runes on the back of the serpent sculptures. He repeated his earlier exploit but found himself removing even more curses. The last serpent required removing no less than 13 curses and jinxes. The last two items were a goblet and a necklace. The necklace definitely belonged to Salazar. Harry knew that these items were important but he didn't know what they were. He needed to do a lot more research to find out what these things were. All three items emanated the same magical signature. He knew that it belonged to Voldemort but there was something else there that eluded him. He knew he has seen it somewhere but couldn't recall it at the moment. Harry decided to transfigure a piece of granite into an obsidian chest and carefully stored the items there.

Harry continued working on the chamber. He had managed to banish all but 6 of the serpent statue. He transfigured the remaining sculptures into scorpions and had four of the statues line up at forty-five degree angle looking towards the centre of the chamber. He made sure that all the water underneath Salazar's statue was purified and put it in the newly conjured marble hot tub in a style reminiscent of the ancient Romans bath house. Harry decided that the mineral hot bath would also act as a medicinal bath. Healing potions would be regularly mixed with the water. Harry knew that the training he had in mind would be brutal and some creature comfort would be very welcomed.

Harry put the other two statues along each side of his newly conjured command chair made of highly polished black and emerald green marble. The statues were transfigured into shiny obsidian scorpions about fifteen feet in length. The back of the high command chair was facing a solid black wall made also of highly polished granite. The wall used to be the face of Salazar himself. The mouth of Salazar that used to be the exit door to the basilisk was now a seamless sliding door. Harry had also expanded the chamber housing the basilisk by mining the inner chamber. The inner chamber was now five times bigger than its original size. The inner chamber was going to be his official command centre at Hogwarts.

The inner chamber was now roughly the size of the DADA classroom. The inner chamber would house all of his electronic surveillance system and he would formulate all of his battle plans from there. Harry conjured a highly polished semi circular table facing the south wall which would contain all of his electronic screens.

Harry also made sure to that the entrance to the inner chamber would be by blood wards and magical signatures only. Harry was now very glad that he had built his trunk manors. The learnings gained from that endeavour were now reaping its just rewards. In building his trunk and with the help of his tutors, Harry now considered himself extremely proficient in the art of charms and transfiguration. His last act for tonight was to move his obsidian box inside the inner chamber and put it against the south west corner. He decided to put the box under the dark Fidelius. Harry had a gut instinct that the box would become crucial later on. Harry had learned to trust his gut instincts.

Harry looked at the time, which was now showing 11:00 pm. He told Xiana that he was going to be late again tonight. She knew that he was remodelling the Chamber of Secrets into his army's training head quarters. Harry looked around and figured that by Friday he would have everything completed. Harry needed to come up with a way to send the listening monitors and the recording video information back to his command centre. Harry had a vague idea of how he wanted to lay out the electronic equipment.

Harry wanted to cut a cable channel into the current rock strata all the way up the large pipe that led into Myrtle's bathroom on the ground floor. North of the sink outside the bathroom window, there was a statue of a Mer Chieftain with a trident raised to the star. Harry had the idea of making the statue hollow and hiding the distribution nodes and the antenna signal amplifiers inside the statue. Harry was going to transform the Trident into a very sensitive antenna for picking up video and cell phone signals from outside of Hogwarts.

Harry also wanted to repeat the same process with another statue. The statue of King Arthur Pendragon was mounted right on the left hand side of the main door to Myrtle's bathroom. The area was perfect because no one ever used this out of the way hall. The statue was close to the moving stairs, the entrance to the dungeon and other classrooms. Before working on the statues, he needed to create the cable channels and then wait for his special order to come from the US. Harry was told that he would be receiving his modified electronics on the third week of September.

Harry ended up ordering two hundred cell phones, ten top of the line battle hardened laptops, fifty video cameras, one hundred listening transducers, a communication console, a video monitoring station, five fifty-six inch screens. Harry's last purchase was a projector with a large screen for the main chamber. The order came close to $2,172,050 US dollars. Harry had a gut feeling that this equipment would prove itself during the coming war. Well it was time to call it quits. Feeling tired again he decided to portkey out of the chamber. He couldn't wait to show Xiana the finished product. Harry apparated back to the trunk portkey chamber and made his way to the kitchen where he met Remus and Xiana.

Xiana said, "Hi love, how was your day?"

Harry made his way to his wife and kissed her soundly and said, "Hi babe, Hi Remus, I had a very productive day today. I told the headmaster, Ron, and Hermione to bugger off. I also made some very solid progress in transforming the Chamber of Secrets. It's exhausting work, but it is coming along nicely. How was your day?"

Xiana replied, "Well Remus and I ended up purchasing a newspaper agency in a nice remote location in London. This means my love that you are going to be busy this weekend putting the place under your parseltongue Fidelius. We figured that within three weeks time, we should be ready to print out our first paper. Remus is supposed to meet his contact on Saturday and get us a list of the Daily Prophet subscribers. When we are done, we will be able to piggy back our paper to every address the Prophet delivers to."

Harry looked at Remus with a big grin on his face and said, "Well done you two. Soon we will be fighting fire with fire. It's time to print the truth that none of them want to hear."

Remus replied, "One thing for sure it will certainly get our world talking. By the way, I met with Fred and George today. I can honestly tell you that they are solidly in your camp, cub. They would make fine additions to the group. They do not trust Dumbledore I can tell you that. You should probably meet them Sunday, that way you can see for yourself if they are acceptable. If they are in, they can start training with the others at night and weekends."

Harry said, "Excellent work, you two. Things are slowly coming together. I'll go visit the twins on Sunday and this will also give me a chance to see Mr. Ollivander. I need to make you guys better wands and also some portkey rings. "

They spent another hour, discussing various logistical issues and nailing down some of the detail work that needed to be carried out. They soon went to bed.

_**Friday Afternoon By the Lake**_

Ginny had been shocked to learn what Bill had been up to. She had been amazed at what her brother Bill had to say. She was even more shocked to learn that Charlie was also with Harry. Apparently, Bill had been in France when the Scorpion Sorcerer struck. In her mind, the fact that Bill and Charlie were sticking up for Harry and their explanation for it finally lifted the weight that she had been feeling this last week. Talking some more with Bill, she got the impression that he was not telling her everything so she said.

"Bill, I get the feeling that you are not telling me everything, am I right?"

Bill looked at her straight in the eye and said, "Yes Ginny, I can't tell you everything until you are willing to take a witch's oath that you will never betray or reveal the information that I give you Also, before I fully reveal everything to you, you will have to become fully proficient in Occlumency."

Bill added, "This week to get everyone started on their Occlumency, everyone joining Harry will be thought how to hide their minds before going any further. The information is so sensitive that Harry doesn't want to take a chance, I hope you understand."

Ginny looked at her brother and decided that she wanted in and wanted to know what was going on. She was going to throw her lot with Harry. Ginny looked at her brother and recited her witch's oath. Bill gave her a big hug and a portkey. Bill told her that portkey would activate Saturday night at 8:00 pm. He told her to make it look like she was going to sleep. Bill asked her to cast a sound proof, and a notice me not charm around her canopy. Bill stated that he would meet her at the appointed portkey destination. Bill gave her one last hug and used his portkey.

Ginny looked at the time and for the first time in a month she smiled and made her way back to the great hall to get some supper.

_**Friday Evening 6:00 pm at Wizard Wizarding Wheezes**_

Fred and George were busy stocking the shelves and Lee Jordan was at the cash register when they heard a voice say, " Wow, this is quite the set up you guys have."

Fred, George and Lee whipped their wands towards the stranger who was wearing what looked to be a charcoal grey basilisk robe with a deep hood and they both said, "Who are you?"

Fred and George heard the stranger chuckle and replied, "Let me put my hood down, and you can see who I am."

George replied, "All right, but no funny business or you'll wish you had never woken up today!"

Harry carefully pulled his hood down and smiled at the twin's reaction. Fred was the first to recover and said, "Bloody hell Harry, you scared the wits out of us." Both twins looked at each other with big grins and ran to pat him on the back. Lee Jordan came over and shook hands with Harry

Harry laughed and said, "It's good to see you boys. Sorry I never got in touch until now, but I was a tad preoccupied."

George said, "That's alright Harry, we were pretty busy ourselves. Hey listen, we saw Remus not to long ago and he gave us a more detailed explanation of what has been happening. We want you to know that we are with you one hundred percent mate. We think the powers to be are all playing us for suckers, it's time to turn the tables I say."

Lee replied, "Yeah Harry, I feel like I don't have a choice anymore. It's like if you are not part of one of the big three you are a nobody and have no say. Frankly I am sick of it. It's time for our generation to step up and take control."

Fred replied, "I could not have said it better. Just tell us where to sign Harry."

Harry said, "You don't know how much it means to me to have you guys siding with me. I only wish that my ex best friends had seen the light like you guys have."

Both Fred and George could see the pain on his face at the mention of Ron and Hermione. George said, "Listen mate, even I have noticed how Ron has been changing over the years. He has been following Percy's footstep since he became a prefect. Ron has always had a nasty streak of jealousy, and he now has to pay the price for his decision. As for Hermione, you know as well as we do that she can't say no to any real authority. Don't beat yourself up over these two they aren't worth it mate."

Harry responded, "You guys understand that in the future you might come up against your own brother in a battle you know that? I will never lie to you guys. If you join me, I will be teaching you dark arts to properly fight Voldemort's forces. The stuff they are teaching at Hogwarts is complete garbage. The fight at DOM thought me that. Are you guys willing to learn the dark arts?"

Fred, George and Lee looked at each other and exclaimed, "Yes."

Fred then said, "As for Ron, what will come will come. He made his bed, now he has to lie in it."

Harry looked at all of them one by one. He used his Legillimens abilities to see if there were any subconscious manipulations or betrayals in the making. He found that they meant what they said. After a minute scrutinizing them, Harry said, "I ask everyone who joins me to swear an oath to never betray me or divulge any information about our operation. Do you wish to take the oath?"

The twins and Lee looked at each other nodded and swore a wizard's oath to never betray Harry or divulge any information. Harry then smiled and threw a 1000 galleon pouch at them and a portkey ring. He told them that the money was for lost revenues since they needed to close down the shop for the weekend due to training. Harry told them that the portkey would activate for 8:00 pm Saturday evening. He told them to bring some spare clothes, everything else would be provided.

Harry shook their hands and apparated out to Potter castle.

_**September 8 Friday evening 8:00 pm Potter castle**_

Harry apparated close to the gazebo on the North terrace of Potter castle. Remus was the first one to spot Harry. Remus always found it disconcerting to see his cub apparate without a sound. In duels it gave him a tremendous advantage.

Remus said, "How did it go Harry?"

Harry replied, "It went better than I had hoped. The twins and Lee Jordan will be joining us. I made sure to scan their deepest feelings and found that they truly wanted to be with me." He said the last with a huge grin on his face.

Remus smiled back and said, "Way to go cub. I was fairly certain that the twins would be with you; however Lee Jordan is a definite bonus. He is very creative and a fast thinker."

Everyone had gathered to hear how Harry made out. Harry smiled back at everyone and said. "I want to thank each and every one of you for coming tonight. I have lots to show you. Bill, Neville and Luna, I gave you my lesson plans for Occlumency and basic dark arts training. I will be there for the first month in flux time, after that I will let you take over the recruits training." Harry paused to let the information sink in.

Harry continued, "Now we need to make sure that all of our recruits are accomplished occlumens. The integrity of everything we are doing depends on it. Don't be afraid to challenge their abilities. Outside of normal school hours, I will be teaching everyone the dark arts and body magic. During weekends, all recruits will go into flux time and learn dark arts with Neville, Luna and Bill. "

Blaise said, "Harry where are we going to learn dark arts at Hogwarts. The headmaster has access to and monitors every room in that school?"

Harry looked at Blaise and with a smile on his face said, "Correction Blaise, the headmaster does not have access nor can he monitor a very special room. I will now show you your new training center."

Harry pulled out two rings encrusted with black diamonds. He enlarged them and said "These portkeys will take us there. Please grab a hold of the ring."

Remus, Xiana, Bill, Fleur, Charlie and Harry held on to one of the rings, while Blaise, Brianna, Neville and Luna took hold of the other. Harry and Neville took their wands and tapped the ring while Harry said, "Scorpion lair."

Everyone felt a tug at their navel and within seconds they were standing in a gigantic room. Everyone looked at the ceiling and could make out the stars in the heavens. The roof of the lair had been charmed just like the one in the great hall. The stars shining overhead gave the place a surreal atmosphere. The only difference was that it was starry here, but everyone knew that it was raining at Hogwarts. Harry explained that he imported the images from the Eastern Algeria. The sky was from the deserts. Everyone could make out the scorpion statues and the command chair. The floors were a highly polished emerald marble and the walls were made of granite polished to a very fine sheen. On the floor at the centre of the chamber were two scorpions facing a phoenix with Canis Major and the Orion nebula all inlaid in the marble floor.

Brianna couldn't believe the beauty of the place. She could easily call this place home. It was certainly a lot nicer than the Slytherin common room. The thought and work that went into creating this place was unreal. Gods she thought, that boy did nothing in half. Brianna was now looking at the weapons rack and the duelling platforms. The training she was about to undertake suddenly became very real all of a sudden. She had the feeling that before this was over she was going to go through the ringer.

South of the chamber, there were five duelling stands set up. To the North East corner of the chamber there was a potions lab with ten benches with cabinets filled with potion ingredients. To the South West Corner there were six shower stalls. Three were for males and the others for females. To the North West corner, there was a full infirmary. Harry told them what his plans were for the scorpion lair. He showed them the hidden chamber where Salazar used to keep his pet Basilisk.

Harry explained his plans for gathering information from Hogwarts and other well know places in the wizarding world. Once again, Blaise was amazed at the amount of thinking and planning that went into creating their intelligence gathering network.

Harry went around the chamber showing them the potions laboratory, the duelling platforms, the hot mineral bath for relaxation. He also showed them the projection screen that would be used for lessons in duelling and battle strategy as well as entertainment. He also showed them the muggle area which would contain the high definition stereo system along with pool tables, dart boards and other muggle entertainment. Harry felt that he needed his troops to see what muggles could offer. He wanted them to understand that even though muggles didn't have magic they had other ways to compensate which could be just as good. He showed them his electricity generators like the one he made for the trunk manor.

Harry told them that by next week, he was hoping to have all of the electronic equipment hooked up. He explained to them all of the goodies that was coming to them. It was Neville who said

"Harry, how are you going to make all of this muggle technology work? I heard that muggle electricity doesn't work at Hogwarts due to the many protection charms on the school?"

Harry smile and gave them a thorough explanation as to why regular muggle electronic doesn't work, and gave them a crash course on muggle physics. He told them about EMP and induced voltage and current spikes brought on by magical energy. He then explained about filtering and using iron casing. When Harry was done, they were all looking at him as if he had grown a second head. Bill was the first to say

"Well if you say so Harry. However I'll believe it when I see it."

Harry smiled and replied, "I'll bet you a case of butter beer."

Bill raised his eyebrows and said, "You got your self a bet."

Luna decided to speak up at that moment and ask a question which had been bugging her and said, "Harry, how are we going to get down here from the school?"

Harry looked at his fellow student and replied, "I will be making specialized portkey rings which use my unique apparition signature. Each ring will use the person's magical energy to recharge, but the portkey will simulate my specialized apparition signature during transit. I will be making your rings and you will help make your new wands on the next full moon which is slated to be September 12." He let that bit of information sink in.

Harry continued by saying, "The idea is for me to set the training schedule via your new cell phone when you get them. I will bring you all over here to instruct all of you on how to use the muggle device. You will find them a lot better than owls. You will head for your bed and put several jinxes and charms around your bed so that nobody bothers you. You will then portkey from your bed to the chamber and back to your bed when finished. I will instruct you on how to make your ring portkey work. Are there other questions?"

Harry saw that no one had anymore questions and decided to call it quits for the rest of the night. Tomorrow was going to be busy enough as it is. He needed to install the Fidelius charm on his new newspaper agency, and he needed to go into flux time tomorrow evening. He made sure to remind the ones that were not Occlumens yet to avoid the headmaster or professor Snape at all cost. He told them to never look directly into their eyes. They all portkeyed back to the trunk manor by Hogwarts lake. From there Harry made sure to portkey Blaise and Brianna back to their dorm beds.

_**September 24 Potter Castle**_

Harry was sitting at his favourite chair looking into the soft blue flames emanating from his fireplace. He was presently going over the final details of his attack plan. A lot of things had happened over the last two weeks. It all started on _September 12_ when Harry apparated back to the castle and Xiana told him that his computer was acting funny. Xiana told him that it kept beeping.

Harry had logged into his computer that day to find that his hacker contact had found something for him. At the same time he also had an e-mail from the storage company saying that there was a big shipment in his storage compartment. Harry had been pleasantly surprised at finding out that the American military manufacturer he was dealing with had finished his order three weeks in advance due to a Korean contract that had been cancelled over two weeks ago. Apparently the company had switched its manpower towards fulfilling his order. Harry unscripted his message found that it was from TechnoMage. This second message was even more interesting.

_Scorpio_

_We did as you asked and carried out a World Wide Web search for some information on the names you gave us. We hacked into several government and underground sites. We found quite a bit of dirt. Apparently, there is a company by the name of Salazar shipping company which operates from the port of Pasni in Pakistan. The company is registered as a shipping company for wholesale cargo. They ship cargo from the Arabian Sea to the French port of Brest. From there the shipping company is re-registered as Marvolo Shipping Ltd. In total there are six ships which fall under Marvolo shipping. They are medium size freighter ships capable of hauling 1600 T.T.E. _

_These freighters leave the port of Brest to land at three American ports. One freighter goes to the port of Miami, one goes to New York, and the other one goes to Welmington port in Los Angeles California via the Panama Canal. They ship twice a year, but never the same ship at the same port. What they are really shipping we have no idea? This shipping company has been registered since 1978._

_The other reference we found was a company by the name of R.Q.G. We found that company label in many places, mainly in the African Sudan and various arms manufacturers in Europe and America. We hacked into the U.S Federal registry under GSA Fed market. R.Q.G is officially registered as Riddle's Quality Gems. The original company was founded in the U.K and moved their business offshore twenty years ago. They have relocated from London to New York. They are quite close to the port of New York. They are located at 15 Jersey Lane. Look into your attachments, there is a data packet which includes detailed topographical maps, and pictures of all the areas including the ships. Hope this helps out. Thanks for the tip :)_

_Later_

_TechnoMage_

_**September 12**__, had been very fruitful indeed. Early that evening, Harry had given instruction to Dobby and Winky to retrieve his order from his muggle storage area. While his elves were busy getting his order, his troops had showed up at the appointed time along with Ollivander whom Harry had given a timed portkey the previous week. That night Harry had made them his special portkey rings, while they were busy making their new wands. Harry supplied all of the material and carefully explained all of the steps to Ollivander. Harry had created all of the rings five days earlier in anticipation of the full moon. The blood runes had to be cast on a full moon. All that was needed to finish them now was to bleed and cast a series of specialized charms._

That night, Harry couldn't recall ever seeing a man as giddy as Ollivander was. You would think that he had just won the bloody lottery. Well he thought as giddy as Ollivander had been; his own troops were just as surprised and happy to be receiving their battle gear. Their most prized possession was by far their new Naquadah wands. They all couldn't believe how compatible they were with their new wands, and how powerful they were. Everyone that night had been casting spells left and right.

There was so much magical energy in the air that it was giving off an eerie glow over the castle grounds. Harry had taken the time to explain to them about their portkey ring. He told them how many times they could use it before it needed recharging. Harry also explained how to activate the disillusion charm built into the ring and how to program a destination. The ring could have up to four destinations. Every portkey ring was the same. It was an amethyst with a black diamond scorpion inlaid at its center. Another four black diamonds were placed at each cardinal point of the ring. The band was made of Naquadah. The one thing he would never tell them was the blood rune that was concealed in every ring just in case someone changed their mind he thought. Dumbledore's betrayal had been a bitter learning experience he would never forget.

Later that night Harry had also given each one of them a brand new cell phone, which was properly shielded against EMP pulses which should technically also shield against ambient magic. Harry already knew everything about their features since he requested it. He told them how it worked, and about text messaging and about setting an e-mail account with their phone, so that if they were somewhere where they couldn't talk they would still be able to type a massage to alert the others. This is where magic came in real handy. Harry knew that each phone would need to be recharged due to the fact that its battery would deplete. Harry had managed to emulate his electrical generator in his trunk manor and created a nine volt continuous source.

It essentially consisted of a storage crystal that could be recharged with raw magical energy, a Naquadria amplifier, and a converter crystal. Harry had recorded the DC energy signature and imprinted the converted crystal with it. Although the storage crystal was small, the fact that it had a Naquadria amplifier, Harry speculated that the cell phone could go for at least three weeks before it went dead. When that happened, the storage crystal would need to be recharged. Harry was the first to try his new cell phone by calling Xiana in the castle. The phone rang and Harry could hear his wife's voice loud and clear.

Now all Harry needed to do was to hollow out and rig the statues with electronic equipment and wiring. He would start with the Mer Chieftain statue outside of Myrtle's bathroom. He also needed to convert the trident and the sword into an antenna. Harry took the RCA dish apart from the base amplifier. He would hide the amplifier inside the statue and connect the trident to it. The trident would be made of white Iron with a core of Naquadah. The surface would be charmed to look like the rest of the statue.

That week following September 12, Harry had spent every spare moment installing, concealing and testing all of his muggle electronics. Harry made sure that all cabling leading down to the scorpion lair had been buried inside the rock strata. The other satellite dish he concealed in one of the trees on the other side of the lake. Harry used only high parseltongue for his concealment charms. This way they would be next to impossible to detect or break.

Later that Saturday, Harry had tested the whole package. He tested the cell phones outside and inside Hogwarts. The voice worked perfectly outside of Hogwarts but was a little choppy inside. It was more than adequate however. Harry had also developed independent power supplies for his camera just as he had done with the cell phones. The cameras themselves were all emitting at a different broadband frequency. This ensured that each camera could be tracked individually and it would make it easier to fix or dispose of a broken camera.

Harry made the energy storage device big enough so that it would last at least a year. All of the multiplexing units, receiver and modulation equipment were installed inside the inner chamber where all three Naquadria electrical generators were. These electrical generators provided all of the electricity to the projectors, camera monitoring board, the AC plenum, the lights for the green house, and the heat for the mineral bath. Some of the items like the mineral baths were also overlaid with magical charms.

By the time Sunday September 17 rolled around, Harry had managed to install 25 cameras and listening device through out the castle and on the grounds. He even had some strategic cameras placed deep in the forbidden forest. The only real obstacle left was to plant a bug inside the headmaster's office. Harry had managed to duplicate one of his trinkets but needed an excuse to plant the bug. Next time he met with Tonks, he would he would give her a cell phone, portkey ring and the trinket. Harry was now only taking DADA, Charms and Transfiguration for NEWT courses. He needed all of his time fighting Voldemort. It seemed like a waste of time studying the other courses.

Although he never took his OWLs in Runes and Arithmancy he would still be able to write the NEWT as long as he could prove he was competent to write those exams. The competency exam was the same thing as an OWL and was given two weeks prior to the NEWT final exam. Truth be told, Harry was learning next to nothing in his regular classes which was fine by him since he was not really paying attention anyway. This only seemed to piss off the carrot head and the beaver to no end. He always managed to show them up during every exercise. The beaver was starting to get really frustrated with him.

Most of his time however had been spent planning and avoiding trouble. All of his spare time had been used up setting the scorpion lair, teaching and maintaining his training. Harry had spent so much time in flux time training that it had become second nature now. Everyday he religiously practiced his Occlumency, his magical aura reading, his martial arts, his body magic and dark arts spells. On top of it all this he spent as much time as he could with Xiana.

Xiana herself had decided to help out with the magical training and also sit at command centre. She wanted to help monitor the cameras and conversations throughout the castle to see if there was any worthy news flying about. Xiana had also been working on their new broom design. Harry knew that Xiana was an excellent flyer and it had been his intention to develop his own broom during the summer but he never got around to it. Now that things were settling down a bit, it was a perfect time to start designing their new brooms. Harry knew that his wife wished that he could spend more time with her, but until he got rid of his NEWT's he would still be on a tight schedule. These days, he managed to get home between 10 and 11 pm at night. They would stay up a lot of times until 1 am talking and catching up on family issues and the day's events.

Harry also managed to get a big brake against Voldemort on _September 17_. After being given the information from his contacts, Harry wanted to scout these places to gather as much intelligence as possible. Harry's gut told him that Voldemort was into some illegal businesses but he needed to find out what it was. His first priority was to start crippling him in the pocket book and shut down his operations. Harry's first precedence that Sunday morning had been to purchase ten invisibility cloaks.

Harry knew from personal experience that they were indispensable for snooping duties. He got the cloaks in a little shop in Knockturn Alley. He also managed to buy ten dragon hide battle robes, ten pairs of dragon hide boots and wand holsters with all of the defence charms put on them. They were quite pricey, but if his hunch paid out, he would get all of that money back in spades. He took his purchase and went back to Potter castle.

Following his purchase, Harry went about finalizing his plans. He used his cell phone and told Charlie, Bill, Fleur, Luna, Neville, and Remus to portkey to the scorpion lair. Harry met Xiana in the living room and told her that they were going on a fact finding mission. Harry laughed when he saw his wife smiling in anticipation. He knew that his wife loved the action. She was definitely an adrenaline junky. They both used the floo to get to the scorpion lair just in time to see everyone else gathering.

Harry had conjured comfortable chairs and made his way to the computer station just below the small theatre style screen. He activated the projector which was connected to the computer and uploaded the images and maps that TechnoMage gave him. He uploaded a topographical map of the Pasni port and then proceeded to give a rough explanation of who his contact was, and gave them a detailed explanation of how he found out about Voldemort's operations.

Harry had explained to them how Voldemort was most likely funding his army. Harry then explained that they were going on a fact finding mission. They needed to find out who the players were and what contacts they were dealing with. Harry reminded them to check for any concealment and repelling charms.

They all came back that night, and Harry collected all of the significant data and decided to go into flux time to give him time to properly prepare their attack mission. After finding out what they were up against, Harry had no illusion that he needed to completely destroy Voldemort's finances. Later that day, his group all came back and they pooled all of their information together. They found out that Voldemort had set up a fake imports business as a front for exporting heroine and hashish from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Voldemort and his lieutenants had established a direct connection with the mountain farmers to grow these crops. Under the disguise of his export business he was able to hide the drugs using magic and get them into France. The drugs were then loaded with legitimate cargo from France in the form of wine and food exports. These medium size freighters would then make a drug run to America to all three ports. Once the ships were in ports, death eaters would seek their muggle contacts and carry out their transactions to transfer money and transport the drugs to predetermined distribution points.

The money would then be transferred via satellite hook-up to a Swiss bank account. There were two large shipments made to every port. One shipment was made in the fall and the other in early spring. These businesses had apparently been operating like this even while Voldemort had been a vapour. Harry estimated that by now there must be billions of dollars sitting in that Swiss account. God, with that amount of cash, he could sustain a bloody huge army indefinitely.

Harry had also found out that the R.Q.G business was nothing but a front to get his hands on cheap diamonds for arms sales. The company set up a network of contacts with various defence contractors. They would get ten percent of any arms sales to the third world countries. To make things even worse, they also had a large list of government contacts in third world countries which provided them with a cheap supply of diamonds which they used as collateral to buy their weapons. R.Q.G had a flat ten percent keep on all diamonds used in the purchase of weapons. The bastard was playing both sides and making out like bandits while muggles were killing each other. The diamonds were then sold with a huge mark-up to the large chain stores like Burkes and such. Harry had been lucky that day that a large majority of Voldemort's players had been busy planning for their next big shipments.

Harry and his troops had been able to capture, interrogate with Veritaserum and obliviate a number of people in charge. One particular gentleman by the name of _Abbas Abdul Quadir_ had been a wealth of information on Voldemort's drug export business. The invisibility cloaks had come in very handy that day. Surprisingly most of the top lieutenants were either wizards or witches. There had been a hairy moment for Bill and Fleur but they had managed in the end. One low level death eater had been terminated and disposed of in order to avoid being discovered.

Harry had gone in flux time with Bill, Charlie, Fleur, the twins Fred and George, Ginny, Blaise and Brianna. Armed with all that new information Harry had needed time to prepare for their attack mission. Harry needed to get a hold of Voldemort's Swiss bank account number, and to also find out which of Voldemort's lieutenants was handling the accounts at Gringotts. For this to happen, he needed to dispose and impersonate Voldemort's top dogs when dealing with the muggles. One thing that Sun-Tzu always stressed was patience when planning for your objectives.

In order to have as many capable bodies as possible for this mission to take place. Harry had been forced to move his training time table for his troops. He had decided to allow flux time from September 16 to September 23. This way his troops would have a solid eight months of hard core training in the dark arts and duelling. Harry made sure to start every flux time at 10 pm at night, this way his troops could portkey to the trunk manor and would portkey back at the same time. This allowed them to get to their day classes until the required 24 hour period was done.

Harry himself had only gone in flux time the last two moths to take over Remus, Neville and Luna. By the time they had finished their last month of training, his most recent troops were over 75 percent caught up to his veteran troops. One thing was for certain, they were easily equal to most death eaters in lethality. Harry had been very pleased with Blaise and Brianna's progress. They took to the dark arts much quicker then the twins. That was not a big surprise to Harry, as he expected no less from Xiana's siblings. His wife had taken to the dark arts very easily herself. The same thing that happened to Bill and Charlie had happened to the twins. They had all been brought up to think of the dark arts as bad and should be avoided at all cost. It simply took time for them to realize that it was not the magic that was bad but how you intended to use it. Once they got over their childhood conditioning, their progress in the dark arts had increased exponentially.

Harry was brought back from his memories by Blaise and Ginny talking about a curse they were having difficulty with. Every spare moment had been devoted to training and planning for the mission. His troops were training up to the hour before they were scheduled to portkey to their destination.

Everyone understood that this was a seek-and-destroy mission. Most of his troops had not killed yet, and Harry knew that training to kill but actually doing it was entirely different. Harry turned from the projector and looked at Ginny who smirked at him. Harry was glad that Ginny had moved on and let go of him. Over the course of her first flux time, Ginny had finally learned many of Harry's secrets and now knew that he was married and madly in love with his wife. She had been very upset at first, but she came to understand that it was never meant to be between them.

Once she let go of her childhood fantasy their relationship turned to that of close friends. Over the course of the last seven months to Harry's surprise, Blaise and Ginny became very close. Harry noticed how very protective Blaise was to Ginny. They were now an official couple, and Harry was very happy for them. Blaise had been very smart about it. He had officially asked permission from all of Ginny's brothers to date her. On their first few dates they had been chaperoned, but soon they were left on their own. Ginny's brothers were happy with Blaise's decorum and intentions towards their sister.

Harry got up from his chair and noticed that everyone was waiting for the final brief to start. Harry went to the projector and brought up on the attack plan. He wanted to hit every site. The trick was to surprise them. The plan was to allow the three drug ships to proceed to destination and allow the transaction of money to be completed with the muggle contacts. When that was done they were to kill all of all contacts, destroy the drugs and destroy the ship beyond repair. Harry and Xiana would be at the last transaction point which would occur at Bridgeport New York. When the time came, Harry would try to transfer all of Voldemort's money to his Swiss account.

Those members who would participate in the transaction were to remember the Swiss bank account numbers in case something went wrong in New York. Each group leader was responsible for finding his or her transaction contact, eliminate them and impersonate them using polyjuice potion. When they were done in America they would all portkey to Marvolo shipping in France. When they were done eliminating that site they were to proceed to Pasni Pakistan and take care of all the contacts there.

Earlier that week Harry had made sure to open up a Swiss bank account himself with all of the security bells and whistles that the muggles offered. He didn't really care because if he was successful in moving Riddle's money to his Swiss account, he would then split the pot into much smaller holding and have them scattered around the planet. Harry decided to address the troops.

Harry looked at the screen projector and said, "All right everyone, it's time to go through our check list. Everyone should have their dragon hide cloaks, boots, a potion belt containing two vials of polyjuice, two vials of blood replenishing potion, two vials of nutrient potions, and two vials of pepper up potion. You should all have two wands. Your new wand should be in your new wand holster strapped to your arm, and you old wand should be safely tucked in your dragon hide boot. You should also have your katana strapped to your backs with concealment charms and notice me not charms on them. "Harry gave them time to go through the check list one by one. Harry made sure that his wife and he both had their full basilisk battle wardrobes on.

Harry waited until they were done and said, "Each of you should also have a portkey necklace with your pre-programmed co-ordinates. Activate your portkey rings if you get into a sticky situation and you can't make the next rendezvous point. Each pair will carry an invisibility cloak with them. Make sure that you have your cell phones with you. You can send quick messages and apparition coordinate if you need to. The name of the game is stealth never forget that. Are there any questions?"

Charlie raised his hand and said, " Harry, if one group needs help and we are finished with our group do you want us to go and help them out or should they just portkey out of there?"

Harry replied, "If your group is finished with their targets and another group calls for help than by all means if you are not injured use apparition to get there and lend a hand. If the situation gets too sticky, use a fuel air curse and use the confusion created by it to portkey out of there. Any other questions?"

Harry looked around and saw that there was no other question and said, "All right, here are the groups. Members of group _Wolf _will be Remus, Fred, George and Lee. You will be taking on the freighter _Mal Foi_ in Miami. Members of group _X-Ray_ will be Bill, Charlie, Blaise, Fleur, and Ginny. You will be taking on the freighter _Le Maudit_ in Los Angeles. Members of Group _Zulu_ will be Xiana, Neville, Luna, Brianna and myself. We will be taking on the freighter _Le Diable_ and R.Q.G head office."

Harry looked around to see if anyone had any questions. No one had raised their hands and continued with his speech. "Remember to stay focused and when the time is right attack. Use group duelling techniques and always watch each others' back. You have all practiced very hard to become proficient in both light and dark magic. Finally remember that your enemy's are utterly remorseless, and evil. They will kill you at a moments notice. Do NOT give them that chance. I want to see each and every one of you back here safe and sound when this is done. Lastly contact leaders for each group will be Remus, Bill and me. Remember, do not under estimate muggle weapons. Make use of the Loki shield to protect yourselves against bullets. Good luck"

Harry got to the center of the chamber and said, "Group Zulu form around me." Harry heard Bill and Remus do the same thing with their groups. Once they were all in formation, Harry said, "Invisibility cloaks on."

Harry looked around one more time and bellowed, "Activate portkeys!" Everyone felt the tugs around their navels and they were off.

_**Miami Florida**_

Remus and his group landed behind one of the crane shacks at the industrial port of Miami. Remus took stock of their situation and noticed that no one was visible within their location.

Remus said, "All right boys, we need to find the port master's office to see where the ship is located." Remus took out his map to pinpoint their location. He noticed that they weren't too far from the port master's office. Remus told the twins to bring up the rear and start casting all the magical detection charms that they new. Remus knew for a fact that Voldemort's forces liked to operate in the shadows. That meant that they must have a secret base of operation somewhere in the port where they can meet their muggle contacts without fear of being jumped by muggle security service. They got to the port master's building and not knowing where they were going, they walked around the lobby until Lee whispered, "Remus, look at this, it looks like a map of the building."

Remus and the twins came to have a look and sure enough it was a map of the building which showed the port master's office on the third floor. Remus looked around and spotted a fire escape. He told his group to follow him. They carefully made their way to the third floor and found the office. No one seemed to be there at the moment. Through the large window Remus could see a large muggle screen with the entire layout of the port. It was hard to tell from the hallway but the docks seemed to be labelled on the screen. Remus tested the door and found that it was not locked. They all stepped in under their invisibility cloak and made their way to the large wall screen.

George was the first one to spot it and whispered, "Look guys, the _Mal Foi _is docked at a place labelled ML-51?"

Remus took a closer look at the map and located the port master's building in relation to the pier. He took out his wand and cast the _memorie_ spell at the map. Now his wand would be able to point him to any destination he wanted on the map. They all got out of the building and Remus carefully led them to their destination.

After about a thirty minute walk, they found the ship. Remus and his group started casting all the detection spells that they knew. When they were done, they found that the ship had six different perimeter alarms and concealment charms. Before boarding the ship they needed to get rid of all these defences. Remus and Lee took care of the perimeter alarms and the twins broke the concealment charms. With that done Remus told his group to sit tight and wait for someone to come out of the ship. They waited for about an hour when they saw a large person wearing what appeared to be a black cloak.

They followed him from a distance. After about ten minutes they saw that he was standing in front of what appeared to be a muggle portable toilet. They saw the cloaked man looking around, probably making sure that no muggle was around and he entered the portable toilet.

Fred finally said, "Why would anyone take their wand in the Loo?"

Remus replied, "I have a feeling that the muggle toilet is not what it appears to be. We are going to wait until he comes out and then we will investigate the place." While waiting, Remus called Bill and Harry to give them a progress report and find out how they were doing. Apparently Harry had already programmed his wand at headquarters to help him find the ship quickly. Harry and his group found an underground distribution centre. Harry thinks this is where the muggles prepare the drugs for street distribution. Remus now believed that they would find something similar. After the transactions were complete Harry wanted them to completely destroy the facility. Bill was in the same boat as him. His group had also found their ship and were now looking at a muggle portable toilet also. These cell phones were incredible, Remus thought. They could have up to six people on a conference call.

Just as Remus cut his connection, he saw the same man coming out of the portable toilet. He waited until the man was well out of sight and he took his group towards the toilet. He cast a couple of revealing charms to see if there were any alarms on the door. He did not find an alarm but he found a muggle repelling charm. He left the charm in place and opened the door. Remus found what appeared to be a regular toilet. He took his wand and cast _Revelo_. A door magically appeared and they opened the door and proceeded down a flight of stairs.

As they approached the bottom of the stairs, Remus could make out voices. They were now at the bottom of the stairs and followed a poorly lit corridor which opened up onto a work area. The work area was fairly large and had no windows. Remus had his group crouched down and followed the southern wall until they came to a set of shelves. Remus led them behind the shelves until they were close enough to hear voices.

A guy by the name of Carlos said, "Man I tell you, I sure hate dealing with these Limy bastards. Fucking guy looks at us as if we are worms. Hey Sam pass me the scale, will you?"

The guy named Sam passed him the scale and replied, "I know what you mean, I would love nothing better than to ice the fucker. What kind of a fucking name is Crab? They must have an awful lot of retarded people in England. "

Carlos answered back, "Yah I hear you man. You got to admit though, their shit is good stuff and they have the best wholesale price on the market. That fellow Goyle is going to be handling the transaction tonight. Just don't piss these guys off. Just take their shit and say nothing. Speaking of that, I got the O.K from the cartel to wire the money into their account. He will be there to type the account number."

George's ears were tomato red after that last comment about Limys. He thought to himself, we will see who is retarded tonight you piss ant. George looked at his brother and could tell he was thinking the same thing. Remus for his part was very intrigued that Crabbe and Goyle were over here. So that meant that Voldemort was using some of his veteran troops to handle the transactions. They needed to eliminate Crabbe and get Goyle to spill the account number to him. Piece of cake he thought, yah right. Although fairly slow on the take they were quite dangerous and needed to be dealt with quickly.

Remus took one last look at the place to come up with the best battle plan and whispered to his group to follow him. Remus carefully made his way back out of the work area and back towards the freighter. They proceeded unto the ship. Remus told the twins to make their way to the back of the ship and take out any opposition, sabotage the engine room and work their way towards the bridge of the ship. Lee and he made their way towards the front of the ship.

They made their way towards the forward hatch and went below decks. They found a bunch of crates and removed the invisibility cloaks and cast a disillusion and a noise suppression charm on themselves. Remus took out two dark crystals the size of oranges and activated them. These were another creation from Harry. The way Harry explained it the crystals had a diamond core with a quartz outer layer.

The surface of the sphere had some runes etched on it and a small black rod which connected the rune to the inner core. He called black rod Naquadria. There were three runes on the sphere. One was a summoning charm, the other was an anti-apparition ward and the third was an activation rune. The other sphere was the same except that it had a rune that would create an anti portkey ward. The sphere's wards would extend over a three hundred feet radius. These would be very useful because casting these wards on the spot was very draining and you didn't want to be weak when going into battle.

They took out their katanas and began looking for the deck hands. There was no sense alerting the death eaters until it was time. Like Harry said, stealth was the order of the day. Remus found his first victim and quickly dispatched him by severing the jugular below the left ear. Remus made sure to cast _silencio_ before taking action. Lee dispatched two more muggles and they levitated the bodies behind the crates and put a tarp on them. They made their way unto the bridge and they could hear Crabbe and Goyle discussing their meeting tonight. Lee was standing right behind Remus and took a step backward when he accidentally bumped into a small bell.

Crabbe and Goyle immediately took out their wands and stunning charm towards their direction, on instinct Remus ducked out of the way but Lee was forced to use a _protego_ charm to avoid getting stunned. By this time he had revealed his position and Crabbe cast the _crucio_ spell at him. Lee didn't have time to dodge and was immediately under the most intense pain he had ever known. Remus had to think fast, Goyle was the one who had the account number so he cast _Ater-Cuspis_ which sent a slew of highly poisoned arrows towards Crabbe. Crabbe was the first to see the small arrows head towards him. He released his curse on the boy and tried to move out of the way. He missed most of them but two arrows managed to get him. One hit him in his wand arm and the other arrow lodged itself in his left thigh. Crab immediately dropped to the floor and screamed his head off. The poison from the arrow caused the blood to become highly acidic. You would literally start burning from the inside.

Meanwhile Goyle couldn't see his attackers and figured out that they were under a concealment charm. He cast a _Revelo _and sure enough he saw his two attackers. To his surprise he recognized one as the wolf Lupin. Not wasting any time, Goyle send an _Avada Kadavra_ towards the wolf. Remus felt a cold wave spread through him and realized that they were no longer disillusioned.

Remus looked to his right and noticed that sickly neon green light coming towards him at tremendous speed. Remus knew that he couldn't move out of the way quickly enough. Suddenly a table sailed in front of Remus and shattered into kindle. Lee had sent an _accio_ spell followed by _ablegatio _the banishing charm. Goyle was thrown against the wall but managed to land on his feet and Remus followed up with some layered spells _Stupefy-Petrificus Totallus-Immobilus_. Goyle cast a _protego_ but by the last spell and the extreme power these spells seemed to have, his shield failed and Lee had sent a _stupefy_ his way. Goyle couldn't dodge the last one and was knocked out.

Lee made his way to Remus who was panting and looked almost grey in colour, probably because of his wolf sense on full alert plus the adrenaline. Remus looked at Lee and said, "Thanks for saving my life with that table, there is no way I could have moved out of the way in time."

Lee replied, "No problem mate. God damn I hate that curse." Remus squeezed his shoulder and turned around and cast _Incarcerous-Metallum_ at Goyle. Steel like ropes came out of Remus wand and wound their way around Goyle's body. While Remus was busy preparing Goyle for interrogation, Lee looked at the bastard who cast the Crucio spell at him. Lee narrowed his eyes at Crabbe and remembered what Harry told them. Show no mercy to the enemy. Lee could hear Crabbe simpering on the ground, and Lee wondered how many people that fucker had killed, maimed and raped in his lifetime as a death eater.

With that thought, Lee took out his katana sword and with a quick downward swipe he loped off Crabbe's head. Lee then pointed his wand and cast _Incendio-Maximus_. Crabbe's body combusted with extreme heat and after about five minutes there was nothing but a pile of ash. By then Goyle had been enervated and watched the whole seen with the boy and his long time friend Crabbe. To say that Goyle was shocked was an understatement.

The wolf and the boy had used dark magic and had killed without a moment's thought. What the hell was going on here, Goyle thought. Finally he looked at Remus and could feel the hatred coming from the wolf.

Goyle said, "How is it that one of Dumbledore's stooge is killing without remorse. Won't you get into trouble with your precious leader of the light?"

Remus replied with a sneer on his face, "Sorry to disappoint you, but my previous manager was far too stupid and slow to adapt. My new manager is much more efficient you see. He doesn't like to recycle old stock, you understand? Perhaps you have heard of my manager, he goes by the name of the Scorpion Sorcerer." Remus finished the last with a wolfish smile on his face. Remus could see that Goyle was very aware of the Scorpion Sorcerer and smelled the fear emanating from Goyle.

Goyle stuttered, "What do you want. I have nothing for you."

Remus replied back, "We need some information from you." Remus heard the hatch open and whipped his wand out, but saw that the twins had arrived.

Remus said, "How did it go boys?"

Fred answered back, "Eliminated six hostiles, and the ship is rigged for destruction at your discretion oh great one." The twins looked at each other with an evil smile.

Remus smiled and said, "Good work boys. Well done indeed. We had a little confrontation but you are just in time for the interrogation. "

With that Remus pulled a vial of Veritaserum and roughly grabbed the back of Goyle's head and tipped it back. Lee squeezed his mouth open and Remus put three drops of truth potion into Goyle's mouth. Remus waited until he saw Goyle's eyes turn slightly milky and began his interrogation.

Remus said, "Name!"

Goyle replied, "Gregory Goyle Senior."

Remus asked "How long have you been a death eater?"

Goyle replied in a flat monotonous tone, "22 years I have been in the service of the Dark Lord."

Satisfied that the truth serum was working, Remus decided to get down to business and asked, "What is the Swiss account number that you are going to transfer the money to from your drug sales?"

Remus could see perspiration forming on Goyle's brows, and knew he was fighting with all his might to resist answering the question. Remus bellowed, "Answer me now!"

Goyle replied, "The account number is "H666-O31416-9696R-7C13-99R9-246U-X777" Remus wrote each number sequence and verified that he had copied the right numbers correctly. When he was done copying the account number he decided to ask who the other death eaters were on the other ships.

Remus then said, "Who are the other death eaters on the other freighters to L.A and New York?"

Goyle replied, "On _Le Maudit_ McNair, Montague and Parkinson. On _Le Diable_ there is Rabastan, Bella's husband Rudolphus Lestrange, Markus Pemberton, Tiberius Flint, and six vampires."

Remus was now thinking furiously and finally said, "Why do you have so many of your people on _Le Diable_?"

Goyle replied, "There is a crate under a concealment charm where the drugs are hidden that has a very large quantity of diamonds, rubies, sapphires and amethysts."

Remus finally asked, "What is your master up to these days?"

Goyle replied, "He is going to meet a large contingent of mercenaries. I don't know where or when but it will be soon."

Remus looked at Goyle and decided that this was all the information he needed. He took out a pair of scissors and cut several locks of hair from Goyle's head. Remus then took out his katana and slashed at Goyle neck just below the left ear. Blood spurted everywhere, Remus took an empty vial and filled it with Goyle' blood and cast a stasis charm on it. The twins incinerated the body while Remus decided to phone the other two group leaders and inform them of who they were facing just in case they didn't know.

Remus took out his cell phone and dialled Harry first. Harry answered and Remus began filling him on his discoveries. Thank God, he managed to get the Swiss account info because Harry only managed to get the log in and a password code before the contact was terminated by a vampire.

Harry managed to secure the computer. Remus also told him who he was facing on their freighter. When he was done he called Bill and gave him the same information. When he was done he hung up and looked at his watch. With all of the excitement they had an hour before meeting the cartel. Remus decided to make another sweep of the ship to make sure that they did not miss anybody. He told Lee to go collect their anti-portkey and apparition ward generators.

When they were done, Remus rigged the explosives to go off early the following day. With that done they made their way to the distribution lab to transfer the money and destroy all hostiles. Two hours later they had completed their mission, and waited for Harry's signal.

_**Port of Los Angeles.**_

It was late in the evening and a full blown conflict was raging. Bill and his troops were currently taking care of the muggles, but with some difficulty, not to mention the death eaters that were on the ground. Remus had informed him of who was on the ship; however there was no mention of the death eaters already on the ground. Earlier they had been dealing with seven death eaters. That number had been cut down to two. Currently Charlie and he were at point, and the last death eaters were hauled up behind a thick wall barricade. Bill began moving his troops into a circular advance.

The concealment charms were long gone, and it seemed that these death eaters could see through invisibility blankets. The enemy had been very generous launching _Avada Kedavra_ and _Crucio_ at them. Bill was very careful and made sure that his troops were never out in the open and always had solid protection as they made their advance.

Bill looked at Blaise and Ginny and said, "Take the left flank. He then told Charlie and Brianna to take the right flank. "On my mark, move. Bill let his hand down and his troops began their assault. Just as they were nearing the barricade when a muggle pulled out of the barricade and took out his muggle weapon and fired at Ginny.

Ginny was the first to see movement and saw the muggle come up behind the barricade, he took out his gun and Ginny cast _Stannum-Ancile._ A silver shield surrounded her and bullets were being sent back to the attacker. At that moment Blaise got within view of the muggle and cast _Ater-Cuspis_ which sent a slew of poisoned arrows at the muggle. One arrow hit him in the eye and he was dead before he hit the ground. At that moment a death eater ran from the barricade trying to escape but Blaise sent a _Reducto_ in front of the man. The spell stuck the ground pulverizing the concrete and sent the death eater falling. The death eater was a lot more agile then they thought when he twisted mid air just as he was falling and cast an _Avada Kadavra_ at Blaise. Ginny reacted within instant and cast _Accio_ Blaise. She put full power to her wand and Blaise was summoned like a bullet to Ginny.

The death eater had enough time to get to his feet and cast _Crucio_ at Blaise just as he was nearing Ginny's arms. Blaise went down writhing in pain. Ginny's eyes burned with a hellish fire and cast _Semivir-Testis. _With a grim smile, Ginny watched as the death eater gave an unholy scream. His face was twisted in pure agony. He was in so much pain that he vomited on himself. Where the man's genitals were, there was a dark reddish stain rapidly growing. Ginny had just castrated the man. Blaise had just enough time to stand up and saw the man's testicles come out of the bottom of his pants. All the men in Bill's group suddenly became very green in the face.

Charlie was the first one to speak and said, "Bill, I swear on my magic to do every thing in my power not to piss off Ginny. She is just down right scary."

Bill just looked at Charlie and nodded his head in agreement. Blaise looked at what Ginny had done, and made a mental note right there to avoid pissing off his girlfriend at all cost. Fleur had seen Ginny's handy work and they looked at each other. Fleur did the only thing she could and gave her a thumbs-up. Bill got everyone's attention and told them to form up on him.

Bill said, "Alright everyone, listen up. These guys are holed up way too tight. I wanted to reserve this as a last measure but we have no choice now. With this bit of magic the protection wards will be breached and the muggle police will be alerted to our position. When we are done here, we go straight to the ship, blow it up and portkey to France to wait for the others. We are going to use Harry's new weapon which he calls a fuel air detonation. Lets retreat behind those containers we saw by that ship."

They made a tactical retreat to the containers which was about 200 ft from their current position all the while avoiding curses which were flying their way. They finally reached the containers and took position.

Bill said, "On my mark every one conjures up a fog of propane gas thirty feet above the barricade."

Bill gave the signal and everyone made the wand movement to conjure a propane cloud. McNair who was hauled up behind the barricade looked at the other two junior death eaters and asked them if they smelled something weird. Just as he finished asking them he saw a small purple ball the size of a marble go over their head. The last thing that they saw was a huge ball of fire heading their way, and a loud sound rushing in all directions. The remaining forces were completely destroyed where they stood. Muggle forensic expert would later recall the horrifying scene. The bodies had been burned to a crisp, and were lying on the ground. Nearly all of their organs had been ruptured. One of the bodies was lying on his back with his body torn open length wise. His liver was crushed.

After the blast, Bill finally understood the power of that spell. Holy shit, he thought, he had never seen destruction of that scale being done with a wand before. The barricade had been turned to rubble. They had been a fair ways when they had conjured the propane cloud, but still the resulting concussion wave had made their bones rattle where they stood. Bill was fairly certain that nothing had lived underneath the cloud. With that he told his group to get to the ship. Thirty minutes later, a freighter was burning in Los Angeles industrial port. Muggle authorities would spend weeks on the case, but come up with no clues as to the perpetrators of the destruction. When the ship was ablaze, Bill portkeyed his group to France.

_**Later that Evening in New York Harbour**_

Harry was on the ship _Le Diable_ and was currently taking stock of their situation. As his luck would have it, he had run into the largest contingent of death eaters amongst the groups. Thanks to Remus' recon he now knew why. Harry wanted that crate of gems. His group was systematically cleansing each ship compartment one at a time.

The ship was under lock down and his anti apparition and portkey ward generators were carefully concealed and operating. They had eliminated three of the bloody Vampires already. One of the Vampires had been caught by surprise, when Harry had been quick enough to parry his axes and caught the vampire in the heart with his katana. The blood sucker had disintegrated on site. The other two had been caught with dark arrows. In many ways Vampires were more formidable then magical beings. They were incredibly strong, fast and ruthless.

They were all hauled up where the drugs were and Harry had just about enough dealing with those fucking blood suckers. Time to put an end to them.

Harry whispered, "All right, here is what we are going to do. We are going to replicate sun light. Recall book three page 65 from Necron's series." Everyone confirmed the spell he was talking about.

Harry said, "Stay along the bulkheads at roughly ten feet apart. When we are in position I will give off a red spark and I want you to cast the spell and work your way towards the centre crates."

Everyone got into position and then Harry fired off the signal and they all cast _Solaris-_ _Optimus-_ _Lanthinus. _The room was bathed in pure sunlight. They suddenly heard screams coming off from the crates in front of them. They all saw three vampires lit up like torches. They were setting fire to the tarps on the crates. After what seemed like a minute the Vampires were nothing but a pile of ash. Harry cast a quick _Aquanimus_ and put out the fires.

Harry said, "Alright, everyone cast revealing charms, we are looking for a crate which has some markings on it, probably R.Q.G. If you find it, let me know." They all got to work casting a series of revealing charms.

Neville said, "Harry, I can feel a ward over here but I can't break it?" Harry came over and cast a dark revealing charm at the ward. Harry replied, "No wonder, its cast in parseltongue. Voldy himself must have been in here." Harry concentrated and everyone heard him hissing and then a soft green shield appeared and flickered out. At that moment a box appeared. Harry opened it and found that it was full of small teak boxes which were full of gems. Harry smiled and put the lid back on and cast a sticking charm to it. He reduced the box and safely stowed it in one of his charmed pockets. When he was done, he told Brianna, Neville and Luna to make their way towards the back of the ship, while Xiana and he would go forward.

Harry and Xiana were approaching the anchor ports of the ship. The place was poorly lit but they slowly and carefully made their way towards the paint lockers. Suddenly a shadow popped out from behind the locker and cast a bludgeoning spell point blank at Xiana which caught her right in her left shoulder. She screamed and was blasted back against some bails, which happened to be filled with packed cotton. Had she hit the bulkhead she would have busted her head.

Harry watched it all happen as if it were in slow motion and suddenly he was filled with a rage so hot, that his veins felt as if they were on fire. Anyone looking at him could see his eyes glowing like neon orbs. The attacker was about to cast another spell towards Xiana when Harry unconsciously cast _Retroago-Figere-Scipio. _The attacker had just started uttering _Avada _when Harry's spell hit the attacker. Harry heard _Kadavra_ and the attacker's wand exploded. Harry heard a scream as if a banshee was dying. Harry didn't waste any time and cast _Nebula-Exustio._ This dark curse causes a cloud of hydrofluoric acid to surround the attacker. The screams suddenly became unholy. Harry quickly cast a silencing charm and ran to his wife.

Xiana said, "Sorry love, I wasn't quick enough. Fuck this smarts."

Harry replied, "Don't move, love. It's going to be all right. I'm going to open up your robe and scan you."

Even in pain, Xiana gave him a mischievous smile and said, "Really love I don't thing this is the time for that sort of thing."

Harry looked at her, smiled and just shook his head and said, "Hey keep your mind out of the gutter Missis Potter."

Xiana smiled as Harry kneeled down, and opened up her battle robe. He noticed a dark purple bruise on her left shoulder. Thank God Harry had learned some medical magic. He used his wand and uttered _Conviso- Corporeus. _Harry read the readings and felt instant relief wash over him. Xiana had been badly bruised but no dislocated shoulder. Thank the lord for the basilisk robes. They took the brunt of the curse that's for damn sure. Harry waved his wand over her abdomen and saw that the baby was fine. Damn the thought of something happening to his wife and child had twisted his gut into tatters. He took out a healing and a pepper up potion, making sure that they were both safe to take for a pregnant woman. He then cast a healing charm on her head and shoulder.

Harry helped her to her feet and made sure she was o.k. He then went to the attacker who was now kneeling on the ground pouring a bucket of water on herself. Harry could see the skin peeling off her hands, but what really surprised him was the face that was looking back at him. This attacker Harry remembered very well from his 5th year as he still had some faint scarring on the back of his hands. Harry still had his hood on and a concealment charm on his face.

As he approached the figure Harry said, "Well, well, well! If this isn't a genetic cross between a toad and a human being. Well this would make her a half-breed. Hello Umbridge, seems you have fallen into some bad company lately. Tsk, Tsk,Tsk" Harry's voice came out cold and harsh.

The pathetic lump of shit kneeling before him looked up at him and screeched, "Who are you, and what do you want to do with me. You aren't going to rape me are you?" She said the last bit with her usual sickly sweet voice.

Harry replied, "I would rather fuck a dead tree rather then touch you." He spat. Without waiting for another response he waved his wand and pinned her up against the forward bulkhead. He then waved his wand again and the top half of her robe was stripped off to reveal a sagging set of breast.

Umbridge who was now in extreme pain and was by now in a complete panic as she recognized the scorpion emblem on his robes and said, "Who are you?" She realized that her only chance now was to activate her portkey. She slowly reached down to her robes with her left hand and felt the familiar object and quickly pulled it out and screeched "Activate!"

Harry knew what she was doing, but he let her knowing that her realizing that there was no escape would mentally crush her. When nothing happened she threw the portkey on the ground and kept asking who he was. Finally he pulled he hood off and laughed.

Umbridge had been ready for anybody but this boy, who was looking back at her. With a sneer she said, "Ah now I know who you are little Potty!" Now a very bright move on her part she realized too late.

Harry sneered and said, "I have been dreaming of catching up to you later for some well deserved vengeance on my part. It seems fate had a much shorter time line than me. Now you fucking sycophant whore, you are going to beg for death, I swear. Lets start with some retribution in kind shall we."

Xiana knew what that woman had done to him and she was not going to stop him no matter what he did. Well, some things she would, but it had to be really bad. Harry decided to conjure his plasma sphere. He cast anther silencing charm and started launching sphere after sphere at her. Harry was burning 'I will not' and 'tell lies' across her breasts. The screams coming from the hag was music to his ears. After about twenty minutes he had the sentence spelled out across her breasts. The flesh was burned black, and knew that the burns had to be excruciating.

She managed to utter her last defiance and said, "Don't worry you little shit, you aren't going to get out of here, Rudolphus will take care of you little Potty."

Harry gave her a feral grin and replied, "Oh, do you mean the Rudolphus Lestrange, husband to that psycho bitch Bellatrix. Well I'm afraid that he left our plane of existence about forty five minutes ago. He is currently just a pile of protoplasm draining into the ship's bilge."

When he was done berating her he said, "Well as much fun as this was, I have business to attend to." He cast the following ancient spell, _Ki-Ud-diþ_ . A swarm of carnivorous desert scarabs descended on her and began eating her alive. The screams, gore and the stench coming off her was enough to make Xiana lose her lunch. When the scarabs were done there was nothing but a skeleton with little bits of flesh left on her bones sticking to the bulkhead. Harry banished the scarabs when he heard Luna, Neville and Brianna say, "Holy shit Harry?"

Harry whipped around and noticed who it was, and said "Sorry I'm a little late, but Umbridge kept me occupied for a little while. As you can see she has gone through my special weight loss program."

Neville frowned and said, "Remind me not to piss you off ok?" Harry just grinned and said. "Status report"

Briana replied, "We took care of eight muggle mercenaries and two wizards. We don't know where Rabastan is though."

Harry replied, "All right, I have the computer and the login details and Remus was able to get me the Swiss account number. It's time for the transaction to occur. We are supposed to meet them at eight p.m."

They all rigged the ship for destruction and made their way to the muggle underground lab. Under the invisibility blanket Harry took some polyjuice potion and became one Rudolphus Lestrange. He carefully removed himself from the blanket and took out the death eater's computer and made his way to the table. He noticed Rabastan in the corner and just nodded to him. Rabastan looked up at him and nodded back. Harry had dispersed his troops not too far from the entrance to the work area in case they needed to make a quick escape. Harry noticed that there must have been over a hundred muggles working in the lab. God damn, he thought, this is going to get bloody.

Harry made his way to the table and took out the computer. He booted the laptop and waited for the access menu to come up. He hoped to hell that the login and password that he got from Lestrange worked. He carefully typed in the login and password and crossed his fingers. The computer waited a second and came back access denied. 'Fuck,' he thought, 'what is going on?' Harry took some deep breath and looked at the keyboard. He noticed that the stupid caps lock was on. God damn infernal stupid ass machine, he thought.

He retyped the login name and password. The computer blinked and the desktop came to life. Thank God he thought, one hurdle out of the way. He connected to the muggle Internet system and connected to the Swiss bank transaction home page. He had memorized the account number that Remus had provided him. He selected account transaction and typed in the thirty one bit account number. The man sitting in front of him was wearing dark sunglasses and had a long jagged scar running from his left eyebrow down to his chin. He was a rather foreboding fellow but truth be told, Harry found him kind of amusing. No doubt this guy was intimidating to muggles, but after having dealt with Voldemort, this guy might as well pass himself off as a circus clown. The man sitting across from him was named Ethan.

Ethan said, "Are we ready for the transaction?"

Harry replied coldly, "Let's get this done, muggle." The man sitting in front of him lifted his eyebrow but said nothing. This was not the first time he was dealing with these strange people. His people kept going to them because they had some real good shit, and had low prices. His cartel leader had made it clear that he was to shut his mouth and get the transaction finalized. Ethan turned the computer towards him and typed in his account number.

Harry turned the computer back to him and pushed the enable screen button. Now came the tricky part. The first transaction went through and then the web page asked Harry if he wanted to carry out another transaction. He typed in his own Swiss account number and Voldemort's account and asked to have all of the money transferred from Voldemort's to his account. The page asked him if he wanted to really do this and Harry pressed the yes button. A little time bar showed up. It was showing him the transaction in progress.

Ethan looked at him and said, "Is there any problems man?"

Harry replied, "No, connection just seems a bit slow today." Ethan looked at him and nodded. After about five minutes, the screen blinked and said transaction complete. Harry looked at Ethan and said, "O.K we are done. See you next spring. We are going to unload the rest of the heroin. "

Ethan said, "I'll have some of my guys help you." He said this as if daring him to contradict him.

Harry replied, "No problems. Pick them out and I'll meet them at the exit." Ethan went and picked four of his guys. Harry stood up and nodded to Rabastan. Rabastan decided to stay in the lab, which suited Harry immensely. This would make it much easier to deal with the muggle until they could destroy the lab. Harry still didn't know how much money he had transferred but that could wait. He needed to take care of business here first. As Harry was walking toward the exit where his troops were hiding, he gave them the hand signal to follow him.

His group under invisibility cloak followed Harry and the four muggles. Once outside, Harry gave the signal for his group to ambush the muggles. The fight was over before the muggles could even retaliate. After banishing the bodies into the sea, they all retreated behind a container and they all pulled off their invisibility cloaks.

Neville said, "Were we successful?"

Harry smiled and said, "Thanks to your hard work and dedication we have just cleaned out Voldemort of his funds. Don't ask me how much, because I didn't have time to check. I'll do this later tomorrow. For now we need to destroy that lab and destroy the ship. Here is what we are going to do..."

The all made their way back to the entrance to the lab. Harry whispered _Ki-Ud-Gir-Zakal_. Suddenly a desert storm came into full force inside the building. Then Harry cast _Zi-Pà-úrgu-Mìna_, which brought forth thirty Jackal warriors. Harry told them to kill everything they find inside. His desert fury confused everyone even Rabastan and soon Harry heard screams upon screams coming from the lab. Harry had no remorse about this. The muggles were responsible for destroying the lives of thousands of their kind with these drugs. In his books they were evil and if there were a hundred less of them in the world, then so be it.

Harry told his group to remove their invisibility blankets and to mow down anyone coming towards the exit. It didn't take long for Harry to hear a slew of _Ater-Cuspis_ being fired. After about thirty minutes. Harry lifted the desert fury and banished his jackal warriors. The sight that greeted them was a horror show from hell. Body pieces were all over the place. Blood was accumulating in pools in the floor's depression area. No one was alive, not even the wizards. Harry made sure of that. No bloody portkey or apparition was going to work tonight, he thought.

With that grim task out of the way, Harry told his troops to conjure a large propane cloud inside the building. They all took out their wands and conjured the propane cloud. He told them to get out and wait for him on the docks. Harry waited until they were safely out of the way and then cast a plasma sphere at the cloud and immediately apparated out to the docks. Within seconds they all felt as if a small earthquake had gone off. They could see smoke and fire billowing out the muggle portable toilet.

Over the next ten hours they had destroyed all of the labs, ships and R.Q.G headquarters. Harry took all of the documents he could find before levelling the place. They had killed all of Voldemort's hired help in the drug trade. The coup de grace had been the complete transfer of Voldemort's war chest from his Swiss bank account to Harry's. This would be officially known as the start of Voldemort's downfall. Harry would face many more challenges in the coming year, but this act had been a truly spectacular feat. The famous Chinese general Sun-Tzu would have been very proud indeed.

It was around 5:00 am the following morning that everyone portkeyed back to the scorpion lair. After fighting in America, France and lastly in Pakistan, the scorpion army was utterly wasted. They all had cuts and bruises. Several members were limping. Harry had made sure to let Dobby and Winky know to prepare beds and food for when the troops got back. Everyone made it back, showered, ate and hit the sack completely exhausted. Most of the regular students used their portkey rings to get back to their dorms. Harry and the rest of the troops stayed at the scorpion lair. Well Harry thought this had truly been a month of challenges. He went to the conjured bed where Xiana was already sleeping. He lay beside her and in less than a minute, he was fast asleep.

Harry felt as if he was falling off a precipice and found himself drifting through a swirling black fog mixed with fiery red burst of light. His drifting seemed to last forever until he found his feet hitting ground. The sky above his head was filled with intermittent lightning strikes. Harry found himself being pulled through a pathway leading to a large set of doors. Harry had no clue where he was, and wondered if this was a Voldemort induced vision.

Harry didn't know how, but he was sure that it was not. This felt far too ethereal to one of Voldemort's crude visions. Not knowing what else to do and feeling the pull towards the great doors, Harry kept walking down the path. As he was walking, Harry noticed a variety of statues lining the path. The statues gave off an eerie look and they all seemed to be looking at him. There were scorpions, Hydras, Nephelims, Extinct Dragons, and Jackal warriors to name a few.

After a while he finally reached the doors and found that the doors had all forms of Runes engraved on them. Harry noticed a set of scorpions facing each other. On instinct he pulled out his wand and traced the engraving. The moment he was done the doors started opening. The sight before him was unlike anything he had ever seen.

There were huge obsidian columns rising so far up that you could not make out the roof of the place. What was even more interesting was the fact that flames of deep blue, purple and blood red seemed to wind into a spiral around the columns. On the ground there were all manners of creatures both small and large. Harry could see large scorpions with human torso and head looking at him. For some reason, Harry felt no fear, in fact the scorpion man bowed their heads as he walked passed them.

Harry finally came to a large dome that gave off an eerie blue glow. Harry noticed an archway, and knew that he had to go through there. Harry crossed the archway and found himself walking towards the centre of the dome. As he approached the centre of the dome he could make out a huge throne with scorpions etched all over the surface of the throne. Floating above the throne Harry saw a swirling mass of blue and green fog with a pair of black eyes with deep purple flames for iris looking back at him. Harry on instinct kneeled and bowed his head in respect and waited.


	14. Chapter 13 Strike and Counter Strike

**Chapter 13 "Strike and Counter Strike"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

WARNING: This chapter contains scenes of torture. If you are not comfortable with it, leave out the end of the chapter.

Harry was kneeling and waited for any kink of acknowledgement from the fog with burning eyes. After what seemed like half an hour had gone by, Harry heard a soft lisping voice. The voice itself had an echoing quality to it. He heard the voice telling him to rise. Harry obeyed the voice and stood tall in front of the swirling mass. Harry now noticed that the mass had a set of black lips moving. Shortly after he heard the sound. Harry felt like laughing, he remembered watching those old Kung-Fu movies where the lips would move and the sound would follow after.

The voice spoke to him directly and said, "Young one, I have waited a long time for you. I have called you from your dream state. In case you are wondering, it is possible with great effort for a higher spirit to access the astral plane of your dimension."

Harry bowed his head and replied, "I do not understand why you have summoned me here. Have I done something wrong?"

Harry could almost see a smirk coming from the formless lips. The being answered, "No young one, you have not upset the spirits as you call us. I wanted to meet your spiritual form, champion. I needed to see your true soul and see if you were indeed the bridge. Although I am not at liberty to divulge much at the present, the fates work in mysterious ways young one. You were meant for a great purpose and destiny."

Harry replied, "I do not want to sound impudent, but who are you and what do you know of my destiny?"

Harry could hear the being laugh and it answered, "You are the past, present and future. You were meant to battle the cheater of fate and the false light bearer. As for who I am, you can call me Tiamat. I was worshipped as the scorpion goddess a long time ago. I fought a Great War in millennia past and lost. I lost due to the treachery of my brother. After the battle my soul was split. A part of my soul was cast into the heavens, and the other lives on this plane in the nether world."

Harry knew that the spirit was holding something back. The spirit continued, "As I said, I cannot divulge your destiny but I can tell you to simply keep to the path you have set yourself."

Great Harry thought, As if I don't have enough stress as it is, I am now bloody responsible for helping bring an ancient spirit's soul back together. God the fates absolutely hate me. Harry was brought out of his thoughts by a sharp laugh coming from the spirit.

Tiamat smirked and said, "Yes young one, the fates can be quite unforgiving. You will find however that the universe cannot run without checks and balances. I find that since my fate is now linked to yours, when the time is right I will reveal more of my ancient dark arts to you. Surely you didn't think that what you have learned up to now is the sum total of the ancient magic which was wielded in millennia's past, do you?"

Harry bowed his head and replied, " Truth be told, I simply took the gifts that I found and never pondered to think that there might be more to be found. I suppose that was very short sighted on my part but there you have it."

The spirit said, "I have enjoyed meeting you, champion. This will not be our only meeting. When the time is right I will seek you out. It is time for you to go back."

As soon as the spirit finished her last word Harry felt himself spinning as if caught in a portkey. Harry realized he was rapidly floating upwards through a thick black fog. He could see a kaleidoscope of colors and found himself suddenly waking up. He sat on the bed and shook his head. What in hell was that all about, he thought? Harry picked up his watch and noticed that it was around 10:00 am. He could feel Xiana stirring also. Suddenly the previous day's events came into focus. He would have to ponder his dream at some other time. Harry had long ago learned to ignore all that mystical crap.

Harry decided to get ready for his day. He had a lot of things that needed doing. Harry suddenly realized that when Voldemort found out that his war fund had been eliminated he would go into a towering rage and go on a killing spree that was sure to cause enormous chaos. Snake face never liked being made a fool of. Well Harry though they would cross that bridge when they got there, for now he had to concentrate on the here and now. With those thoughts at hand he got up and headed to the mineral bath to get some healing done. The potions had worked wonders. Now he just needed to polish off the last bit of stiffness.

Harry spent that time reviewing the different battle scenes and came to the conclusion that his battle inside the ship had taken a lot longer than it should have. He would have gotten rid of the bloody Vampires a lot sooner had he used his Jackal warriors. Harry realized that having Xiana with him had caused him to be more cautious and hold back his powers. He could not afford to do that again. Then again most of his fights up to now had been out in the open. Close quarter fighting was something entirely different as he had found out. Harry remembered reading a book on the muggle WWII battle of Stalingrad. Much of that battle had been about close quarter fighting. Harry was sure he would pick some valuable information from that battle.

Harry came out of the mineral bath trying to be as quiet as possible. His wife was still sleeping, no doubt still recovering from all of that portkey travel. There is a reason they tell pregnant women not to take portkeys, because it makes them violently sick due to the spinning action. Xiana figured that by making herself into a cannon ball she could avoid the more tortuous spinning. However it doesn't stop the inner ear from spinning and that coupled with raging hormones makes for a messy sight. She apparently stopped puking at around 6:30 am this morning. Harry made his way to the bed and picked up some fresh clothes. God bless Dobby and Winky, he thought.

Harry made his way to a breakfast table that Dobby and Winky must have rigged while they were sleeping. Harry helped himself to some scrambled eggs, back bacon, hash browns, and some Russian black bread. When he was done breakfast, he went into the inner chamber and booted up his laptop. While the computer was booting up, he decided to have a little peek inside the castle. He cycled through various cameras, but most of the students were in class. He hooked up to the Internet and went back to check on his Swiss bank account.

When Harry looked at the amount, he nearly fell off his chair. Harry never realized that drugs and weapons dealing were that lucrative. The amount flashing on his screen read €44 billion Euros. Harry immediately began his task of splitting that amount into ten different banks. Harry had already consulted with Bill on what they would do with Voldemort's war fund if they ever got a hold of it. They decided to not repeat Voldemort's mistake of putting most of their eggs in one basket. Part of their strategy session was to contact high level security banks and open accounts. They came up with ten banks and decided to only have two people know the bank account numbers. Freeport Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Bank of Hong Kong, Bank of America in the US, Canadian Royal Bank, Lloyds of England and a host of other banks.

Harry also found a charm that would transfer the account number from a designated member to another should the person die or become incapacitated. The beauty of the charm was such that the person whose memory was transferred would be obliviated of any memory regarding the account numbers except for him. Harry came up with the succession list. Currently Bill and he would have access to the accounts. Harry decided to set up a war fund council to review all spending. This way the group could have a say on war effort spending and have the power to veto him or Bill should the need arise. The group would include Remus, Xiana, Neville and Luna.

The group itself would rotate every six months. This way, there would be a good balance of opinions and strategy. Harry realized that he did not have all of the solutions and ideas. Besides, Sun-Tzu always stressed the importance of listening to your closest advisers. Harry decided to have a bi-weekly meeting with Bill and the executive group to review all spending. When Harry was done splitting the war fund, he came out of the inner chamber and found that nearly everyone had already gotten up and had left for lunch. Harry spotted his wife and made his way to her table. Xiana was currently talking to Neville and Luna.

Xiana was the first one to spot her husband walking towards them and waved him over. Harry came over and said, "How are you, love?"

"Much better thank you. I'll wait till the baby is born before I take another portkey. I'll tell you this much." She replied

Harry replied, "Well now we know why they say pregnant women shouldn't travel by portkey." Harry looked over at Neville and knew from the look on his face that he was dying to ask how much money they had swindled from Voldemort. Harry went and got himself a plate of Connolly pasta and made his way back to their table. Before Neville could blow a fuse, Harry assured both of them that he had already accessed the accounts and told them how much money their operation had transferred. The look at his table was quite amusing. They all nearly fell off their chair and then Neville laughed like a maniac. Both, Xiana and Luna had a very satisfied look on their faces. Harry told them that there would be a meeting that night to have a mission review and fill the rest of the group on their accomplishments.

The conversation moved on to their newspaper, which had Luna and Xiana very excited. Harry and Neville discussed classes and how to get to their NEWT's as fast as possible. Harry needed to get to Gringotts to get some things completed. He was going to miss Transfiguration and Charms but he really didn't give a shit at this point and time. In less than four weeks he was going to write his NEWT's come hell or high water.

Harry also needed to meet his father in law and get the file folders on the Wizengamot members. When he was done there he needed to get back to Potter castle to meet with his other elves. Harry had already postponed his meeting with the Elves once already, and he had no intention of postponing again. Harry kissed Xiana and told her that he would meet her back at their meeting tonight and told the other two to tell the teacher that they had not seen him since Friday. This should keep the heat off of them. Harry walked back to the middle of the lair with his laptop safely stowed in his backpack and apparated to Gringotts apparition point.

After a two hour meeting with Griphook, Harry walked out of Gringotts smirking to himself. His troops were going to be mighty surprised during their post operations meeting tonight. Harry knew that he had to play a fine balance in rewarding his troops. Harry had no intentions of repeating the mistakes of the famous muggle general Napoleon Bonaparte. You don't want to make your troops afraid to loose what they have gained from the spoils of war, yet you don't want to deny them their rightly earned spoils of war. The balance is very delicate. Harry believed that he had achieved the right one, only time would tell. With that thought he apparated to _Stenton and Zabini Attorney office_.

Harry reached his father in law's office and made sure that he had his hood on with a disillusion charm on. The last thing he wanted was to create trouble for his in law. Harry walked up to the second floor and spotted his father in law's office. He knocked and heard a voice telling him to enter. Harry noticed that the building along with the office was nicely decorated in black and burgundy. There were many nice tropical plants and nature like paintings. Harry looked around to make sure that no one was around except his in law and put up the strongest anti-listening charms that he knew. When he was done he walked across the lush black carpet and greeted his father in law.

Michael looked up and smiled when he saw his son in law walking towards him. They both clasped each other's forearms and Michael said, "Hello Harry, it's good to see you. I'm sure you have lots of news for me today."

Harry smiled and replied, "Hello Michael. You are quite right there are a lot of things to discuss today." They both sat in comfortable chairs and Michael conjured some tea and scones. With the formalities out of the way, Harry gave his father in law a summary of the events over the last three weeks. By the time Harry had explained their actions from the previous night and how much money they had taken out of Voldemort's war chest, Michael was left flabbergasted.

Michael was now thinking furiously. He knew that the Scorpion army had just dealt a very nasty blow to the Dark Lord. That being said, Voldemort was not stupid and would likely have some backup reserve somewhere, not to mention that the Dark Lord would be seeking retribution for his losses. Events were certainly moving at a furious pace.

Finally Michael looked at Harry and said, "I have heard from some sources at Gringotts that Voldemort has a special vault set aside there. I wouldn't doubt that it is filled with money. I would also hazard a guess that the vault is by blood recognition only. That being said, there is no question that you and your group has managed to obliterate a major part of his funding organization. You must be careful Harry, because there will be retribution for this. However, now that you have his funds you will be in a position to start your takeover of the Wizengamot very soon."

Harry thought about what Michael had said, and he fully agreed with him. He needed to make sure that his troops treated Voldemort and his death eaters with extreme care. They could not afford to let down their guards. He looked at his father in law and replied, "You are right, there is no doubt that the Dark Lord has a back up vault closer to home. He will be able to finance his current troop level in the foreseeable future but at least he will not be able to gain massive troop replacement anytime soon. Now as for the Wizengamot, I believe the first step is to take care of the Supreme Mugwump and get you to head the Wizengamot." Harry said the last bit with a feral smile on his face.

Michael laughed and walked over to the left bottom drawer on his desk. Harry could hear him muttering several charms and heard a click coming from the desk drawer. Michael pulled out a thick file folder and handed the folder to him.

Michael said, "Son, this is all of the information I could get on the members of the Wizengamot. It is fairly comprehensive and contains some interesting tit bits. For instance, the only way to have the head of the Wizengamot thrown out of his position is to prove that he is not a member of the light. Harry, for you to step into the Wizengamot, you must get rid of Dumbledore. You must use your knowledge to get him expelled as the Supreme Mugwump. That being said, due to some families being hard up for money, they have forfeited their rank and position on the Wizengamot council. Anyone with the right power could buy one or more of the seats on the council.

Michael continued with his explanation. In order to influence the Wizengamot, one had to understand its power structure and its influence. The Wizengamot was composed of the Upper House and the Lower House. The Upper House was made up of permanent members. Currently the permanent member was based on pureblood status and overall magical strength.

The lower house was composed of fifteen elected members. The Lower House members tended to be either famous, rich or academics with lots of contacts. One needs to serve the Lower House for a minimum of seven years before they are even considered for the Upper House. To become a member of the Upper House, a Lower House member needs sponsorship from a member of the Upper House. The Upper House then needs to vote in said member and reach two thirds majority for the lower member to become an Upper House Lord.

All Wizarding laws came from bills initiated from the ministry. Bills can also come from the general populace by either petition or referendum vote. These bills are then sent to the ministry for review. Once ministry lawyers put their two cents worth on the new bill it is sent to the Lower House of the Wizengamot.

The Lower House then votes on said bill. If the bill is passed in the Lower House, then it is sent to the Upper House, which also named the House of Lords for final approval. Once in the Upper House the bill could be passed, rejected with a very valid explanation or delayed for a minimum of eight weeks before the bill can be debated again. This stalling or fill busting could be done to a maximum of three times before a final vote can be cast. The upper house seats were comprised of voted in purebloods. Magical creatures were excluded from being nominated in both houses. The Supreme Mugwump was the tiebreaker in the upper house should a law or bill be tied in the Upper House. The Mugwump could cast the deciding vote on any tie bills but could do nothing to a bill that was annulled by the House of Lords.

During their visit to Potter castle, Michael had given him a very detailed crash course on the events of the House of Lords during the last thirty years. It seems that during the early seventies many Lords of the upper house had gone missing or found dead. All of the Auror investigations had been kept under wraps. However, Michael had read the reports and found that many of the purebloods who had taken a negative or neutral stand on the topic of blood purity had been eliminated. All of the evidence pointed to Voldemort. Harry now knew that good old Voldie would have had the cash and connection to elect Lords that were sympathetic to his cause.

Harry's plan was simple. He was going to fight fire with fire. If mayhem, blackmail and murder were good enough for Voldemort and his supporters then he was going to give them the same treatment ten times over. Harry needed to have his people in place before he could dissolve the House of Lords and overturn the Lower House. Almost two thirds of the Upper House of lords was made up of absolute pureblood racists. Those fuckers were the first to go. Harry felt that there was no use even bothering to buy them or blackmail them. They were absolute fanatics and had to be exterminated. Sun-Tzu said that political expedience was the fastest track to power. All methods justified the means. Harry had candidates for every lord he took out of commission. In war there are no luxuries, you do what you have to.

Harry took his time to explain his plan in details to his father in law and asked him for his input. Michael gave him a few suggestions, which he took. When he was done, Harry picked up the thick folder and said his goodbyes.

Harry walked out of the building and decided to make his way to the leaky cauldron for a quick bite to eat. Harry took his time and finally reached his destination. Harry scanned the place and quickly found an empty booth and went to seat himself. While waiting, Harry decided to read up on his file of the Wizengamot members. Unknown to Harry a man had been tailing him since he had left his father in law's office. Harry had forgotten to cast his perimeter charm when a man plopped himself in front of Harry with his wand pointed at his head. Harry slowly put his hands on the table and slowly lifted his head to see who his attacker was. Harry immediately recognized the beaten and scary looking wizard facing him.

Moody was the first to speak and said, "Boy, I am rather disappointed in you. Haven't I always told you constant vigilance! How come you let your guard down that easily? "

Harry smirked at the retired Auror and said, "Old man, I'll admit that I forgot to put my perimeter alarm charm on, however just so you know you would never get a hex fast enough to catch me even with your wand pointed at my forehead." Harry immediately brought out his magical aura reading ability. Harry would know the moment a curse was starting to come his way.

Moody meanwhile raised his eyebrow and said, "I'll believe it when I see it."

Harry replied, "Try your best, old man." Harry saw Moody's aura change and saw a curse coming along his wand arm. Harry recognized the curse as a _stupefy_ spell and wandlessly cast a _protego_ shield. To Moody's shock the spell was rebounded right at him. In that close of proximity Moody never had a chance and flopped on the table unconscious. Harry smiled and cast _enervate._

Moody woke up and made the scariest grin Harry had ever seen. Moody shook his head and said, "Damn boy, I sure wish I could have trained you instead of the annoying little shits I was forced to train this summer. Now I am more curious than ever, and I was wondering what you were doing out of Hogwarts grounds Potter."

Harry just raised an eyebrow and said, "Well as an emancipated person, I was simply taking care of some family business, especially finances. History has taught me not to trust many people, if you catch my drift. As for Hogwarts, I could miss the next six months of classes and study on my own and I would be much further ahead. Let's face the facts, that school's curriculum sucks. With a headmaster hell bent on sticking with light spells, he is ensuring that we lose this war. I have every intention of rectifying that little problem if you know what I mean. "

Harry saw Moody's shoulder slump and he replied, "I don't know what's happened to Dumbledore Potter. He has changed an awful lot these past fifty years. He was always manipulative, but never to the extent that I experienced this summer with you Potter. I can't blame you for writing off the Order and especially Dumbledore. If somebody were manipulating me to my death, I would tell them to fuck off also. Don't worry boy, I'm not going to report you to Dumbledore. I don't exactly see eye to eye with the old boy anymore. The Order has turned into nothing but a cluster fuck."

Moody looked at Harry and saw him nod for him to continue. "Listen Potter, I'm no fool. I know that you are somehow in contact with that Scorpion Sorcerer. Now I know the guy is using some awfully dark magic, but from everything I hear and see, he uses it to fight Voldemort's forces. Personally I see no problem whatsoever in fighting fire with fire."

Seeing that Harry was still paying attention he continued, "I guess what I am trying to tell you, is that I would like to join him at some point. I still need to convince myself that he is the genuine article and not some other Dark Lord in the making. Now to prove that I am not smoke and mirrors I am willing to pass critical information from the Order as long as it is used to help innocent people, you understand? Also, I have a lot of contacts still at the ministry with the Unspeakable and senior Auror departments. They can provide valuable information concerning the ministry's and Voldemort's plans."

Harry looked at Moody and carefully completed a surface scan of the man's memories and intentions. Harry didn't want the risk of being found out, so he left the deeper memories alone. Moody was an Auror and they were taught Occlumency as well. If Moody eventually decided to join him, then he would request a deep memory scan. So far, the man appeared to be sincere, but until Harry was one hundred percent sure, he was going to keep his guards up. That being said, he wasn't going to refuse Moody's gifts. One of Harry's weak points so far was his lack of accurate intelligence within the ministry. Moody's contacts providing information on the ministry of magic would go a long way in closing that gap. Now, Harry had to be careful as not to appear too eager.

Harry replied, "Alright Mr. Moody, I like your idea of taking it slow. The Scorpion Sorcerer doesn't like to rush into things. I have something to give you that will allow for secure communications between you and me. I'll relay any information directly to him. When you feel you are ready to join him, let me know." With that, Harry took out his cell phone and showed Moody how it worked. He showed him the letters under the number buttons and told him to dial _Scorpio_ to reach him.

Moody looked pretty impressed with the muggle contraption and said, "I thought muggle electronics didn't work with magic?"

Harry smirked and replied, "Well our mutual friend found a way to counter act the magical effect on muggle electronics. We'll keep in touch." With that Harry stood up and walked out of the pub leaving a laughing Moody behind. Harry made his way out of the pub making sure that his cloak hood was on, and walked to an apparition point by Gringotts. When he got there, he apparated to Potter castle for a meeting with some very excited Elves.

_**Meanwhile back at Stenton and Zabini Attorney office**_

Michael was sitting at his desk marvelling at Harry's success against the Dark Lord, when a black-cloaked person wearing a deep hood came through his office front door. Instantly Michael took out his wand and leaped from his seat and took a defensive position behind his desk.

The stranger casually stopped walking and looked at Michael directly in the eye and said, "Now, now is this how you normally greet your clients Michael?"

Michael suddenly remembered whom that voice belonged too and replied, "Lucius, this is quite a surprise, I thought you were locked up in Azkaban?"

Lucius listened to Zabinis reply trying to discern any kind of sarcasms. Finding none, Lucius pulled his hood down and said, "Well, when one has friends in the right places, anything is possible, don't you agree?"

Michael answered, "I suppose that holds for just about anybody. As you well know, I have never favored playing word games or play the high society politics. We, Zabinis are practical and completely independent. Now why don't you tell me what you want?" Michael finished the last with lots of emphasis. He knew deep down why Malfoy Sr. was meeting with him, but he would be damned if he gave in to him.

Lucius raised his eyebrows at that last comment but decided to ignore it for the moment and said, "Since we are dispensing with the formalities, I am here to offer you a position in the Dark Lord's inner circle. We need strong and capable purebloods to carry out the purging of half-bloods and muggle born wizards and witches. The Dark Lord needs people he can count on."

Michael knew that Malfoy was here to recruit him and his answer was going to be the same one as when he was asked during the first war. "Lucius, my position has not wavered from the last war. Zabini's have always remained neutral in wizard wars. Besides, even though we do have some issues with muggle born, they are certainly not enough to want to exterminate them. I don't know if you have been reading the latest medical magical journals but it seems that the rise of squibs in pureblood families has increased dramatically due to inbreeding. Killing muggle borns is not going to help the magical world any. I am sorry, but my answer is no."

Deep down, Michael saw through Malfoy's recruiting as that of a desperate man. It seems from Lucius visit, that his son-in-law's activities were having a much bigger impact on the Dark Lord than he had originally thought. Michael could almost see the near desperate look coming off Malfoy's face. Michael was no berk. He knew that there would be retribution for his refusal. Michael felt that he needed to prepare for the eventual conflict faster than originally planned.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes and sneered, "Zabini, one way or another you are going to join our ranks. It would be a pity to have to have your family come to harm."

It was now Michael's turn to narrow his eyes and he said, "Remember Malfoy, the art of kanly is very much alive." With his last comments, Malfoy put his hood up and pulled out a portkey. Before he left, Malfoy left a parting shot, "I'll be seeing you soon."

Michael went back to his desk and immediately started to make a priority list. There were lots of things to be done in a short amount of time. Michael took out the contraption that Harry had given him, and dialled the number as he showed him. He heard his wife at the other end and smiled to himself. Harry was right; the Wizarding world was amazingly backwards on a lot of things. He immediately told Xenna to get the Elves to gather all of the family treasures into the large storage room on the east side of the manor. He was going to Gringotts to open up another vault.

_**10:30 am Riddle Manor in little Hangleton**_

It was a very scared group of death eaters who had come back from investigating their operations overseas. Bellatrix was looking at the other frightened faces in their group and couldn't blame them for feeling the way they were. When they informed their lord of their findings, there would hell to pay like none of them had ever seen before. Yesterday evening, key members of the inner council failed to show up, and their Lord had sent them very early this morning to investigate.

They found all of their underground labs destroyed, RQG headquarters destroyed and all of their fellow death eaters dead. Many of them had been with their Lord since the first war. Bellatrix herself had lost her husband. There were no physical traces of him but she recognized his residual magical signature. At their New York lab they also found scimitars and kama weapons. At all of their labs, they found evidence of very dark magic. This was definitely not the work of that old fool Dumbledore or the ministry. She was leaning towards this Scorpion Sorcerer, but there was no obvious clues left like a mark or what not. The best thing they could do was to bring all of the evidence to their Lord and hope to make it out alive.

They reached the throne room to find the Dark Lord talking with Lucius. As they entered the inner chamber, red eyes suddenly looked up to find a very subdued group of death eaters. The Dark Lord narrowed his eyes and said, "Bella, what news do you have of our contacts?"

Bella scurried to her lord and bent down on one knee and kissed the hem of his robe and said, "My Lord, our forces have suffered a dreadful setback. We went to all of the sites only to find the same result. All of our underground labs have been destroyed along with RQG headquarters. We found none of our brothers and sisters alive. All of our muggle contacts were killed. We did a thorough search of the site and found indisputable evidence of dark magic and we also found unusual weapons. There was no call sign left at the site, my Lord." Bella looked up and for the first time in her life she saw panic in her lord's eyes.

Voldemort narrowed his eyes and started going over the information that Bella had given him. To say he was pissed was an understatement. He had spent many years establishing his financial empire and thought that it was completely safe. He sat on his throne thinking for a moment and realized that this had to have been a coordinated attack. Voldemort was not a stupid man and started going over the evidence and realized that there was a distinct possibility that more than one group of forces may have been at work.

With the evidence of dark magic it was unlikely that they were dealing with the Order of the Phoenix, however with the information that Snape had given him, he would not put it past the muggle lover to strike some kind of alliance with this Scorpion Sorcerer. The real question was why the attack had taken place in the first place. Granted they had struck at his forces and many members of his inner circle were gone. Fools, he thought if they were that weak, then they deserved to die.

His inner circle could be replaced easily enough. However the destruction of his financial organization was a significant blow to his plans. How they had found out about his financial empire in the first place was a complete mystery to him. One thing that stood out was the fact that his enemies were a lot more resourceful and organized then he ever thought. They were going after a specific target but surely they must have known that he would be able to eventually replace his financial empire. Suddenly Voldemort felt as if an iceberg had taken residence in his stomach. He mouth suddenly went dry and he started to actually sweat.

The Dark Lord bellowed, "Lucius check the status of the war accounts immediately." Lucius rushed off to one of the side room adjacent to the throne room and made a muggle phone call to Switzerland. Meanwhile the Dark Lord was pondering all of the different scenarios that could have brought about this attack. With all of the resources he had expanded on this Scorpion Sorcerer the truth of the matter was that he didn't know a whole lot about him.

That fact alone truly wrangled him. Voldemort always took pride in making rational decisions based on facts. He had always taken great pains to find out everything he could about his enemies before making his move. The fact that he had so little info on that Scorpion Sorcerer showed that this enemy was not of the ordinary lot. The fact that he could hide his tracks this well spoke highly of the man. What really confused him however was the fact that the Scorpion Sorcerer was obviously dark, and yet he went to great pains to attack him. Someone that intelligent wouldn't do all this to just dethrone him as the reigning Dark Lord. No, Voldemort was more certain than ever that he was missing something in this equation. A shaking Lucius brought him out of his thoughts.

Voldemort sneered and looked into Lucius eyes and said, "Well, what have you found out?"

Lucius gulped and went down on one knee and said, "My lord, I don't know how this is possible but our war funds are gone. According to the muggle records you approved the transaction as it had your authorization code issued for the transaction. I know this was not the case my Lord as we were planning strategy last night." Lucius looked up at his Lord and saw a fire burning in his eyes that truly scared him shitless. His master roared with anguish and malice.

Voldemort was pissed beyond reason. Overnight he had lost over eighty percent of his war fund, over twenty years of planning, subterfuge and killing gone in one night. Suddenly he took out his wand and started firing the darkest curses that he knew at the gargoyles lining the wall of the throne room. Dark, purple, green and crimson lights were erupting out of his wand faster than anybody had ever seen. His entire inner circle dove to the ground hoping to avoid the curses. After about ten minutes of straight cursing, Voldemort fell back on his throne panting.

Finally he looked up at his inner circle and said, "Rise, tonight I want the entire council to meet here. We have much to plan. I have no doubt that the Order had something to do with this and I want to plan an attack on them. That's not all. We are going to be doing some major muggle hunting. Who ever planned this thinks that they have us on the ropes. I say it's high time we take the initiative once more and show those bastards who they are fucking with."

Voldemort took some deep breaths and hissed, "You are dismissed! Be back for eight o'clock sharp tonight. Severus, I want a little chat with you." He said the last with a sneer.

Snape looked at his Lord and gulped. He knew that he would have to play this one very carefully. He stood up and approached his Lord. Severus took a deep bow and said, "How may I be of service my Lord?"

Voldemort sneered and said, "Do you know if the Order was involved in this attack in anyway?"

Severus realized that he was threading on very thin ice here so he formulated his answer to appeal to his lord's intelligence. He said, "My lord, much like you, the old fool has learned from his own mistakes during the last war. All plans are on a need to know basis. I was not aware of any Order strike plans. The old man keeps his cards very close to his chest these days. It is unlikely that he would have involved me at any rate since we are effectively into a new school year, and he probably was trying to give me some kind of cover. The old fool tends to be sentimental at times. A most unfortunate character fault if I do say so myself."

Voldemort was paying very close attention to Snape's reply. He detected no sarcasm on his part. Dumbledore was a muggle loving fool, and often gave the appearance of a barmy old man, but Voldemort knew this to be just a front. In reality his nemesis was as cunning as they came and to under estimate him was a very grave mistake indeed. Voldemort narrowed his eyes and said, "Severus I believe you for now. I want you to find me an easy target from the Order of the Phoenix and also, it has come to my attention from Lucius, that certain Slytherins aren't willing to pledge their allegiance to me. The Zabini's come to mind. I want you to tell Draco to arrange for a message to be sent to Zabini senior. The message is to be quite harsh, do I make myself clear?"

Severus looked at his Lord and replied, "Crystal clear my master. My Lord as for your order to directly attack the order of the Phoenix, I think that a target outside of England would be easier to carry out. The order would have great difficulty getting there and it would show that your power base is not situated mainly in the U.K. There is a Weasley living in Romania that would make an ideal target, my Lord."

Voldemort pondered Snape's reply with great care. Everything that he said made perfect sense. He remembered Bella telling him that this Scorpion Sorcerer was somehow implicated, and Voldemort knew the truth in that statement due to the high level of dark magic used. Dark magic was not something the Order of the Phoenix would sully their pretty little hands with. Voldemort also saw the benefit of a marriage of convenience between the Order and the Scorpion Sorcerer.

Voldemort finally replied, "Severus I have many assignments for you today. First, you are to get word to the Malfoy brat concerning his task. Second, I need you to find out where this Weasley is residing outside of the U.K. I also want you to brew many medical potions. You will not be taking part in any of the attacks except for the one on this Weasley. I cannot risk the old coot's suspicion anymore than he already has concerning you Severus. Third, you will come back here tonight and assist the rest of the inner council in planning the muggle raids. Your logical mind will benefit them greatly. That being said, rest assured Severus, I will be watching you very closely. Your loyalty as far as I am concerned is still in question. One screw up on your part and believe me, I will give you pain the likes of witch you have never seen. Dismissed!"

Severus bowed low and made a quick retreat back to Hogwarts. Severus counted himself lucky to be getting away without any severe punishment unlike many of his brothers and sisters. The Dark Lord was pissed, that much was undeniable. Loosing over twenty year's worth of accumulated funds would make anyone pissed. His work as a double agent was getting harder and harder. Severus realized that in order to save his neck he had just sacrificed an Order member. The old coot would have to be kept ignorant of this particular activity in order to keep his neck off the chopping block.

Too bad Potter was not an Order member, he thought. Still, he considered, the Weasley was just as good of a target. Severus had no love for any of these idiots. The father was a simpleton, and the mother was nothing but an annoying twit. Some of their kids had some potential but had unfortunately been contaminated by the other two. There were far too many Weasleys to go around anyway. His order to inform the Malfoy heir of his task in taking care of one of the Zabini's would be a lot more difficult. This had the potential to set Slytherin house on fire. Severus made his way out of the wards and apparated to Hogsmeade. He looked around to make sure he was not being followed and made his way to the castle.

Harry apparated back to Potter castle into the main parlor to see Dobby and four other house Elves waiting for him. Dobby was the first one to his side and said, "It is so good to see you master, how is your day being master Harry Potter Sir?"

Harry bent down to Dobby's level and heard the other Elves gasped. Harry replied, "I'm doing fine Dobby, I see that you have brought our guests."

"Oh, yes I have been searching for free Elves to join the greatest wizard Harry Potter sir. They would be honored to be part of our family sir."

Harry looked up from Dobby and gave the other Elves his undivided attention. He noticed that they were all looking at their feet, and seemed to be very self-conscious to be in his presence. Harry's first duty as their future master was to make them feel secure and welcome.

Harry conjured four plush chairs and a pot of tea. He told them to have a sit and have some tea and scones. The Elves couldn't believe that a wizard would carry out such an act for mere Elves. Harry turned to Dobby and said, "Dobby, before we get going with the interview could you please tell Xiana to meet me in the parlor room."

Dobby replied, "Right away sir." Dobby disappeared with a slight pop. Ten minutes later Xiana walked straight to her husband and gave him a peck on the lips and took a chair next to him. Harry then went on to explain to the Elves how things worked in the Potter family. Xiana jumped in to add more details to some of the issues Harry glossed over. Harry made no bones about what his expectations were concerning loyalty, perks, pay and other administrative tit bits. In return Harry found out that the Elves were named Toby, Zagred, Dez, and Rico. There were two males and two females. Harry couldn't believe his luck. Both Toby and Zagred had worked for the Goblins at their mining site in Terri's Minor in Scandinavia. Toby worked in extraction and Zagred was a metallurgist expert. The mine had been rendered bone dry and the Goblins had decided to let all the Elves go, instead of relocating them.

The Elves in front of him were relatively young, however if they were not bonded, soon they would lose their magic. These two would be a great asset he thought. They could help the other two with what they knew and all of them could be sent to the asteroid sites to mine the Naquadah and extract the Naquadria. Dez and Rico had worked as farmers. They were both experts in herbology and animal care. They both had worked for a company called the Wizard Co-Op. The company had gone into receiver ship and all of the workers were laid off. Harry found out that he had extensive land holdings that had once been used for farming both in magical and muggle kind. Harry had every intention of bringing back those lands to full production. Harry's first priority was to make Potter holding completely self-sufficient. What ever was left over would go to wizard and muggle markets. All of the Elves seemed very excited to be joining his family. After a few more explanation Harry told the Elves to chat among themselves while he consulted with his wife.

Harry said, " Well I don't know about you, but I have a pretty good feeling about them. They are honest and they seem really eager to begin working. What do you think?"

Xiana replied, " I have to agree. The mining Elves seem like a godsend, and the farming Elves will come in really handy later on. We will have to get them to cross train, but it already seems like they are eager to learn from each other. With the manor trunks already made, they can get going as soon as you have given them your instruction. "Harry nodded and went back to tell the Elves that they were going to be part of the Potter family. He proceeded with the bonding ritual. With the ritual completed, his new Elves were all wearing black leather outfits with the Potter crest on the upper left side of their chest. He also asked them to set up a training schedule as soon as possible to that they could cross train each other.

When that was done he introduced them to one of the trunk manors and told them about their new assignment. He showed Toby and Zagred what they would be mining and how do it. He also explained the formula to Zagred on how to stabilize Naquadria. Harry then showed them the ancient blood wards that he wanted them to use, and told them to include any elf wards that they knew at their work site. He explained to them the importance of secrecy at all times. When they were done mining a site, they were to come back to Potter castle with the purified ore. Harry would then tally and store the ore. Harry decided to let the Elves choose a room for them selves. It turned out that unlike Dobby and Winky they chose a room on the main floor towards the back end of the castle. The rooms were not big but were very cozy and seemed to appeal to these Elves.

With that out of the way, he told Xiana that he would meet her at the Scorpion lair later in the evening. He gave her a passionate kiss and apparated back to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. When he was there he pulled out his schedule and noticed that his next class was DADA. He cast a disillusion charm on himself and made his way towards the DADA classroom. Once he got there he noticed that no one else had arrived yet and cancelled the charm. He transfigured Michael folder to make it look like his DADA book. When he was done, he began to read the files. The files were very thorough. He began reading when he noticed Cindy Donovan (aka Tonks) walking towards him.

Tonks looked around and cast a quick silencing charm and asked, "How did it go Harry?"

Harry smirked and said, "It went a lot better than I thought Tonks. There is a meeting tonight to go over our results. It is time that you saw our operation first hand. I will require you to take a vow. The information that will be divulged tonight is critical. Everyone in the group takes the vow."

Tonks looked hurt at first, but realized that everyone was taking the magical oath. Magical oaths were binding, and if broken would result in that person losing their magic or dying. She had made up her mind to follow Harry after the Grimmauld debacle. The fact that Sirius made him Lord Black only cemented her oath to him even further. She looked at him, smiled and nodded.

Harry smiled back and slipped her a portkey. He told her that it would activate at 7:00 pm. Harry looked up and heard people coming. Harry nodded at her, and walked to the other side of the corridor. He did not want to jeopardize his spy. He had to maintain his distance from her. Harry noticed Draco and his goons walking towards him. As usual, the albino couldn't pass up on a confrontation.

Draco noticed Potter leaning against the wall in a bored like manner. Draco got within three feet of him and with pure venom said, "Well boys, pothead decided to grace us with his presence. All bow to the great pothead. Now why is it that he is never around much these days? Personally, I think the reason we don't see him is because he spends most of his day's hiding and crying over the fact that no one wants to be his friend. After all, losing so many fans can be devastating to one's ego."

Draco waited for Potter to blow his stack. However it never came. Potter simply raised his eyebrow and made a fake yawn and went back to reading his book. Draco thought how dare he ignore him in such a callous fashion. Draco finally said, "What's wrong Potter, getting stupider as the years go by? Can't come up with a decent comeback?" Draco spat.

Draco had barely finished his last words when Harry had moved so fast it seemed like a blur. Suddenly Harry was standing nose to nose with the Malfoy heir and said, "You know Blondie, you are really starting to get on my nerves. It seems my little lesson has gone unheeded. Very well! If you are so eager to meet your final end, I'll hasten my timetable just for you. "

Draco suddenly saw Potter's eyes take on a cold green glow. If he were honest with himself, he would admit to being scared shitless. However, loosing face to Potter was not an option. Draco narrowed his eyes and finally whispered back, "You know Potter, I simply can't wait for the Dark Lord to have you in his clutches. I'll be there to enjoy every moment of your torture. You will be begging for your death."

Harry whispered back, "Maybe the Dark Lord will get me in the end, but not before I get to torture you to death. That, shit for brains, is a promise I intend to keep." With those final words Harry brought out his Dementor aura. The hallway suddenly became very cold, and Harry concentrated on Malfoy and his goons. Harry could see Malfoy's face contort in agony. Malfoy and his goons collapsed on their knees. Harry kept concentrating his aura on those three when he suddenly felt a hand roughly push him away. Harry tuned around to see the sneering face of his favorite batboy and heard him say, "That was an unprovoked attack on Mr. Malfoy, Potter." He spat the last and continued saying "That will be fifty points from Gryffindor and detention for a month."

Snape smirked expecting to rile the little shit further. However, this was not to be, Potter turned around and Snape found himself looking into the coldest eyes he had ever seen. The sickly green neon color of his eyes and the cold utterly unemotional face that met him, made him shiver where he stood. Finally Potter managed to say, "Sorry professor, I was simply putting a death eater in his place. It's not because the headmaster tolerates them that all of us agree with him. After all, most of us aren't willing to give the bastards a second chance." With his last words Snape saw the implied meaning behind his words.

Snape narrowed his eyes and said, "Mister Potter, please keep your unwarranted suspicions to yourself. That will be another fifty points from Gryffindor for falsely accusing a fellow student of wrong doing."

Harry replied with pure spite in his voice, "Is that so!" Suddenly he reached for Malfoy and with incredible strength he hauled Malfoy to his feet and slammed him against the wall and pinned his left arm against the wall. Harry then took his wand and yelled _finite- incantatum._ He then pocketed his wand and ripped the sleeve off Malfoy's left arm. The dark mark stood plain as day on the boy's forearm. Suddenly Harry bellowed loud enough for everyone to hear, "So, Snape! Still think that I have an unwarranted accusation against your godson, eh?" Harry heard everyone in the hallway gasp when they saw the dark mark on Malfoy.

Harry suddenly spun around and said to the rest of the hallway, "What, you all didn't think that the Dark Lord's mini death eaters were real? Well if you won't believe the written truth at least believe what your eyes tell you." With that he whipped his wand out and cast _incarcerous_ on Crabbe and Goyle. Once they were tied properly, Harry cast _finite- incantatum,_ on their arms and did the same thing to them as he did with Malfoy. Sure enough, the dark mark was clearly visible for all to see on their left forearms. Harry finally said, "All of you look at them. Is this what you want in your school? Known death eaters operating amongst you? Ask yourself a simple question, why does the headmaster of this school allow death eaters to stay here?" Harry looked up to find his members gathered on the outside of the hallway walls smirking at Malfoy and his goons.

Harry whirled on the DADA professor and stood barely three inches from his face. He narrowed his eyes and bellowed, "So professor Snape, do you still maintain that I am telling stories, and being a big head like my father was. Are you still denying the fact that this school is harboring death eaters? I wonder what the ministry and the board of governors would say to having marked death eaters present at Hogwarts. Believe me, they will find out."

Snape was seething with hate. He never expected Potter to react the way he did. Potter had called out his godson and his pals in front of the whole class. He needed to consult with the headmaster on where to go from here. Snape swore revenge on the little bastard. He finally said, "Class dismissed. You haven't' heard the last of me Potter." He turned around with his cloak billowing and made his way to the headmaster's office.

On his way he picked up his godson and his two goons. Severus needed to talk to the headmaster about his morning's discoveries concerning the Dark Lord's financial situation. Perhaps he could talk the headmaster into letting his godson and his goons stay at Hogwarts. Severus could claim that their parents had made them take the mark. After all, to his knowledge they had not stepped out of line. At any rate, they had to stay long enough for them to take care of the Zabini's. With these thoughts in mind, he dragged his godson and his two morons with him.

Harry was glad for another cancelled class. He had lots of work to do anyway. Harry decided to go to his lair in order to get his work done. He had no doubt that there would be repercussion for his little display. However the ball was in his court for a change. How could they possibly make him look like the bad guy in this incident? Harry decided to make his way to Myrtle's bathroom and apparate to his lair. As he walked out of the hallway he heard another voice that he would rather forget.

Another person by the name of Theo Nott had been looking at the entire spectacle. Over the last months, one thing had become very clear to Theo. One, Potter was definitely no one's golden boy. Two, he had fallen deeply in love for Blaise's twin, Brianna. Three, Theo found out that Blaise and Brianna were secretly siding with Potter. At first, Theo had been confused over his friend's action. For one thing, Potter was not a fully-grown wizard, how could he possibly stand up to the Dark Lord or Dumbledore. However, his own observations had proven him wrong. Potter could definitely take care of himself. He had after all fought the Dark Lord on many occasions.

Not many wizards or witches could claim the same. Theo had refused his father into taking the Dark Lord's mark. For one thing, Theo didn't believe in the Dark Lord's goals. Theo had also heard many times that the Dark Lord himself was not even a pureblood. That kind of hypocrisy simply turned his stomach. Theo had always been his own man and he would be damned if he allowed anybody to influence his decisions. Theo wanted to know more about where Potter stood and arranged a meeting with Blaise and Brianna to talk to them. He wanted to know why they pledge their allegiance to Potter. One thing for sure, he was so glad that Potter had put Malfoy in his place. Theo couldn't stand the bloody cretin. How that imbecile ever made it into Slytherin was a bloody miracle.

Further up the hallway, Hermione had also been there to witness Harry uncovering Malfoy and his goons as death eaters. What bothered her the most was the fact that he was missing so many classes. The teachers apparently had no clue as to his whereabouts and her lack of information on his activities was becoming quite irritating. She had nothing for the headmaster and the fact that she was disappointing him was making her even more resolute to find out what he was up to. She needed to get back into Harry's good graces and was willing to eat crow to get there.

Harry was passing near her when she bellowed "Harry I need to talk to you." Just as he passed by he looked at her and gave her the finger. She narrowed her eyes at him and stomped her foot. Ron was about to pull out his wand to curse him, but Hermione put her hand on his forearm and told him to relax. She told him that antagonizing Harry was not going to get them what they wanted. They started to make plans to get Harry to trust them again but unknown to them one Cindy Donovan was listening to their conversation.

Meanwhile, Harry made it back to the lair to finish reading the folders and work some more on his broom design and a new magical weapon based on a muggle construct. Harry made sure to inform everyone by cell phone of their post operation meeting later that evening. Harry had another little surprise for his group except for Xiana who already new. Harry had kept in contact with his tutors, and two weeks ago, Akima asked him if they could join him. Harry had been very surprised at his request. Akima who had been his martial arts instructor, was the first one to contact his other tutors to see if they would be interested in joining him.

Apparently, Akima wrote to him that during his summer training, he had secretly caught Harry training in dark magic. Seemingly, Akima had heard of the massacre in France and came to the conclusion that Harry had been responsible for that. Akima reassured him that he did not reveal that particular fact to his other tutors. All he told them was that Harry was involved in a struggle to death against the death eaters and the Dark Lord. After that, Harry took the initiative to contact all of his tutors one by one and told them what he was trying to accomplish.

Harry knew from his time training with them that they were all sympathizers to his cause. He asked them if they wanted to be part of his army and also teach their craft to the others. They seemed very enthusiastic to take up where they left off with Harry. From the way they wrote their letters, Harry got the distinct feeling that they were bored stiff with their lives and wanted some action. Harry told them that they would have to take a wizard's oath of loyalty to him before he could divulge any further details of his operation. This didn't seem to faze them one bit. Harry finally sent them a timed portkey via owl so that they could be present to meet his group tonight.

Harry was very glad that his tutors decided to join him. They were absolute masters of their art. They would offload Harry from teaching the others duelling, transfiguration, charms, potions and martial arts. Harry would only need to concentrate on the dark arts, muggle sciences and war tactics. Harry looked at his watch and noticed that it was time for another accursed class. God, he couldn't wait to take his NEWT's. Harry made his way to transfiguration class.

Harry made sure to go to transfiguration and met a very pissed McGonagall. Personally Harry didn't really care. She was complaining about him missing some classes, and that he needed to properly learn the art of conjuring. Harry informed her that since his tuition was already paid, he could very well decide on his own if he should attend classes or not. Harry just couldn't figure out why these people simply couldn't mind their own fucking business. The professor slapped a sheet on his desk and told him that if he could conjure every item on the list, then he need not pay attention.

Harry looked at the list and noticed that there were twenty items. He took out his old holly wand and began conjuring a cup, sleeping bag, English breakfast, chair…etc. When Harry was done, he noticed several people with their mouth wide open and a very pissed off Granger in the process. Granger looked at him with narrowed eyes and seemed to be seething with anger. She apparently had been stomped on item thirteen. That was conjuring a mirror with an oak border.

Harry smirked at Granger and turned around to find McGonagall looking at him with a curious look on her face. She finally said, "Mr. Potter, could you please enlighten me as to where you learned the art of conjuration so well?"

Harry smirked and replied, "Simply from a good book over the summer and of course lots of natural talent." He said the last as he looked up at Granger and the carrot head. Harry noticed her face twist with anger. Harry couldn't help thinking that he was having a pretty decent day indeed. He looked over to see Neville stifle his laughter. Harry noticed that Malfoy was still missing, which could mean that he had been expulsed, which seemed highly unlikely or the git had once again bought his way out. Only time would tell. Finally the bloody class was over and Harry made his way back to the Scorpion lair. Harry took the time to go over some critical issues he had with his broom design. He found the exercise quite relaxing. Before he new it, it was nearly seven 7:00 p.m.

Harry decided to pack his things and have a quick roast beef sandwich. When he was done he cleaned everything up and made his way to the project table. Harry had a chance to review all of his memories from their operation, and recorded them. He had already asked everyone to write down any specific events that stood out from their operation. It wasn't long before he heard a gasp and a squeak. Harry knew that voice and found Tonks looking at the lair with a look of awe on her face. Harry chuckled and said, "Hi Tonks, welcome to the revolution."

She whipped around to face Harry and said, "Who built all of this. This place is unbelievable."

Harry laughed at her enthusiasm and said, "I did. It took an awful lot of hours and funds but it's home away from home. Come, let me show you around and I'll explain everything, but first I need you to take the oath."

Tonks looked at him straight in the eye and gave him her witch's oath of loyalty. She swore to never betray him and to be a soldier in the cause. Tonks knew that she was going to take the oath but after seeing their headquarters and the level of organization that had gone into it, she knew she was on the right side. Harry had already given her a full disclosure of what his group stood for and what they wanted to accomplish.

She agreed with all of their goals. It was truly refreshing to see someone not just talking about fixing the problems in their society but actually do something about it. She hated the racist attitude and complete ineptitude of the ministry. On top of that, she found the Order of the Phoenix to be a joke at best. Harry's and now her group of people had already done more to squelch Voldemort than the Order and the ministry put together. Harry showed her the command center and now she understood why he wanted to plant one of his contraptions in the headmaster's office.

The information gained from there would be extremely valuable in figuring out what move the old coot was planning. Tonks walked out of the command center to find Remus, Bill, Charlie, Ginny, the Zabini twins, Neville, Luna, Fred, George, Fleur, Lee and Harry's wife. Harry asked her to change into her true form and informed his group what her function was. They were all roaring with laughter when they found out that the minister and Dumbledore were being played like suckers.

Harry asked them to sit at the conference table and brought out his projector. Harry noticed Tonks sitting by Remus and smirked to himself. Harry said, "Now as you are all aware, we are here for a post debrief of our previous mission. Now I know some of you are quite anxious to find out how we did. Now some of you already know, but I have asked you to not divulge the information until this meeting. Now we have been able to clean out Voldemort's war chest, which was worth €44 billion Euros. This is roughly equivalent to over 2 billion galleons."

Except for those present at breakfast, Harry heard most of the others gasp at his last statement. Harry waited for the shock to die down before launching his other bomb. Harry let the excited chatter go on for another few minutes and held his hand up. Every one quiet down and Harry then said, "Now each one of you will notice a gold key in front of you. I have taken the liberty of opening a vault for each one of you and deposited 2 million galleons into each of your accounts. This money is yours to do as you please. This money was dirty money, and I figured that as a start it should go to people whom I know will do well with it. To the victor go the spoils of war."

Just as before everyone became very excited at hearing of their new wealth. This would make it much easier for people to build themselves their own safe residence. Harry once again let the excitement carry out and continued, "Now, that being said, I have also set up a magical orphanage fund worth 200 million galleons. The orphanage will take care of war orphans as well as magical children who do not whish to be part of the muggle world. I have also put forth 20 million galleons for a new lycanthropy research center, which will provide free wolfsbane potion and a safe house to those werewolves who need it. I have also set up a 10 million galleons for a magical fellowship center. This center will represent all magical creatures and act as sort of a diplomatic center where all magical creatures can learn from one another. The rest of the money will go towards our war effort. The newly elected war funds council had agreed to all of these proposals. By middle of October, everyone will also be fitted with top of the line battle gear. "

Xiana stood up and made her way to her husband and kissed him soundly. She could hear the whistles and catcalls from the Weasley twins. She was not embarrassed one bit. She was so proud of Harry. His heart was so big. He was always looking at the big picture and how to help people. His new vision of the Wizarding world was one they could all be proud of. He was so dedicated to making it happen. She knew he was doing this for his unborn children as well as all the oppressed magical creatures in their world. She had no doubt that in time he would build the biggest coalition of magical creatures that their world had ever seen. When everyone finally calmed down, Harry explained how the war fund was going to be managed and how everyone would take a turn eventually. Harry then asked everyone to go over their post operations notes. Many discussions were carried out and Harry took the time to listen to every one. He made many notes that he copied, to his computer files.

When they were finally done with the post operation debrief, Harry said, "All right everyone, we are almost done here, but before we go I want to spring one more surprise on you. During my summer training in flux time, I had the privilege of meeting some of the finest magical beings in existence. At first I hired these people to be my tutors, but in time they became my mentors. If you have any doubts, please talk to Xiana, she was there for a lot of their teaching, she can vouch for their worth if you don't believe me."

Harry looked around and seeing no interruption continued, "I want you to know that they are the best that the magical world has to offer in their respective field. My old mentors have decided to join our group and will help in training all of you to the highest standard possible, and will participate in war missions. The more people I have finished with their schooling the more time they can spend on war missions. With that being said, they will help all of you prepare to write your NEWT's. Are there any questions?"

Neville enquired, "Harry, when are we going to meet these new people and what will they be teaching?"

Harry replied, "Neville, I'm glad you asked that question, brother. They should be making their entrance just about now." On cue, Harry looked to his right and noticed people appearing one after the other, much to everyone's surprise.

Harry walked over and greeted his former tutors one by one. Harry took them and brought them by the conference table and said, "All right everyone I would like to introduce you to some of the greatest magical practitioners of our day. On my left we have Akima Nakamura. He is a Zen Master, a Samurai sword expert and master martial artist. He is a master of Muay Thai, and Jeet Kune Do. He is also an Expert in Body Magic. On my first right we have Hinrich Schäfer, and he is one of the most accomplished Potions Masters in the world. He received the German Governors Medal on creative healing potions. Next to him, we have Yadislav Klunichov, who is a charms expert, and winner of the academic medal of excellence in ancient charms and runes. Next to Akima, we have Michael O'Toole who is a Transfiguration Expert and Arithmancy master. He has received the Order of Merlin 2nd class for Inventive Transfiguration in advancing the theory of transfiguration physical kinetics. Standing next to him we have Tiberius Nantius, who is a duelling and tactical expert. He has won 5 consecutive International wizard duels. Finally yours truly will be teaching advanced dark arts and muggle science."

As one, all of his tutors bowed to the group. Xiana was the first one to stand up and greet each one. She did a formal greeting and kissed each one on the cheek. Next came Ginny, Brianna, Luna, Tonks, Fleur and finally all of the guys came around and shook their hands enthusiastically. This had been a very good night indeed, Harry thought.

Remus smiled as he shook each of Harry's past tutors. He had already heard about some of them. Most of them were already legends in the magical circles. Remus couldn't wait to talk shop with many of them. Remus couldn't believe how much he had learned these past few years in flux time and now he was going to learn even more from these masters. No wonder Remus thought that Harry was so well rounded. That being said, Remus knew that his tutors had simply helped Harry hone in his own natural abilities. All of Harry's magical inventions and discoveries came strictly from him. Remus simply couldn't help feeling immense pride for his cub. Remus silently let a tear escape from his eyes. He wished more than anything in the world that Lily and James were here to see their son along with Sirius. They would be so proud of him.

Tonks was feeling so overwhelmed. Thank God that Remus was here. She knew that Harry had been busy, but not in a million years could she have imagined how deep he had gone. She looked to her right and noticed the tears on Remus' face. Tonks walked over to him and laid her hand on his right forearm and said, "Are you o.k. Remus?"

Remus was startled by the physical contact but didn't pull his arm away. He smiled when he saw Tonks looking back at him with worried eyes. Remus finally replied, "Sorry Tonks, I was just thinking about Harry and how proud James, and Lily would be of him. If I know Sirius like I do, he is watching us right now with a big grin on his face. Harry is so special and he doesn't even know it. He accepts everyone and makes people believe in themselves. He somehow manages to bring the best out of everyone he meets no matter the circumstances. For the first time in a long time Tonks, I feel we stand a very good chance of winning this bloody war with Harry leading. "

Tonks thought about Remus' words and replied, "Remus, I think that from the day Harry was born, he has been leading us, wither he wants it or not. Anyone looking at him can't possibly doubt that he is a natural born leader." Remus looked down at her and took his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder and smiled down at her. Tonks blushed, but inwardly was jumping for joy that Remus was holding her.

Harry looked around to make sure that everyone had been introduced and told all of his school peers to come back for some serious training starting Thursday. He kept Tonks and his tutors back. He had his tutors take the oath of loyalty. After that was done, Harry went and picked up a mahogany box sitting on the table. He gave a portkey ring to each one of them and told them how they worked. When that was done, he took his mentors to the trunk manor sitting in the corner next to the mineral pool. He told them that the trunk was already keyed to them and that they could live in there indefinitely. Harry told them that they would discuss training schedule and such over the week. Harry then showed them all of the different labs that they had access to. All of them were excited about the state of the art equipment. When he was done with the tour and explaining what his plans were over the next couple of months. Harry went to meet his wife who had been waiting for him.

He met Xiana and said, "Well it's getting late love. How about we make our way to the other trunk manor by the lake? It's too late to make it back home. We could use the rest. You and Remus need to get started on the articles tomorrow."

Xiana replied, "I agree, I am absolutely bushed. Sorry luv, I sure seem to be slowing down lately."

Harry looked deep into his wife's eyes and bent down and gave her one of his most tender kisses. When he pulled back he said, "Beloved, you take however much time you need. As for being tired, I think you can blame the little tyke for that." Harry couldn't help himself and gave her a big grin.

Xiana simply laid her head on his shoulder and they slowly walked to the trunk manor in the Scorpion lair. Harry had many reasons for putting one of his trunk manors there. For one it would provide privacy for his past tutors and second, it would allow Xiana to travel without having to use her portkey. That mode of travel tended to make her sick as a dog.

Harry woke up early that morning. Harry could still see the stars outside fading quickly into daylight. He got dressed and went out for his daily workout. He had a good jog around the great lake. When he came back he showered and then practiced his Occlumency. When he was done sorting his thoughts and checking his shields he decided to go downstairs and get breakfast started. Due to seasonal changes, Harry noticed he was constantly hungry. Xiana's appetite had also increased dramatically. Harry got his pans out and cooked a fully loaded breakfast. Harry managed a nice Spanish omelette with pork sausage, stewed tomatoes, hash browns, and back bacon. When he was done, he realized that he had made enough for four people. Harry was just finishing the table when he heard his wife.

Xiana had been watching Harry cook breakfast. He was wearing a pair of jeans, with a black muscle shirt. His long black hair was neatly tied into a ponytail, and he was sporting a black scorpion earring. All in all, she thought, a totally delectable sight. She finally said, "Well husband of mine, with the amount of food you have, I'm wondering if we are having company over?"

Harry looked sheepish and replied, "Well I got carried away a little bit, but I wanted to make sure we both started the day with lots of energy. Besides, you are eating for two, and I imagine the little tyke is hungry about now." He finished the last with a smirk on his face.

Xiana laughed and made her way to the table. The smell of the food was delectable. Harry poured her a tall glass of milk and a vitamin supplement. She shook her head and dug in. When they were done breakfast, Harry said, "Are you still planning on meeting Remus at the news office? Because if you are, I have a couple of written bombshells ready for printing, after you have checked them over, of course. I am still discovering my diplomatic language skills after all."

Xiana replied, "That's good. We are almost done installing the equipment and we have already connected it to the floo network. Potter castle will only allow floo travel if you are keyed to the blood wards. When you have a chance could you cast the remaining blood wards on the agency floo also? This way, there will be no chance of anyone breaching our defences at the agency."

Harry said, "No problems love, I'll do it first thing this Saturday. After that I'll be leaving overnight to go to Egypt. I promised Anubis that I would help him find his kin. I have a feeling that In the future more people will adopt his kind as their familiars. They are amazing creatures. Now, I was wondering if you already had a name for our new paper, or is everyone invited in submitting potential names for the paper."

Xiana tapping her nail on her front teeth replied, "Remus and I have already brainstormed a bit on names, but I believe that it would be nice to hear what the other's think our new paper should be called."

Harry nodded and replied, "Well for what it's worth, I was thinking of _The Discovery_ for name with a footer that says _May the truth set you free_." Xiana went and fetched a piece of paper and wrote down his choice.

Xiana said, "I'll collect everyone's names for it and we will take a vote on each name. How does that sound?"

"Great!" Harry replied. He took of his shirt and put on his Basilisk vest. He then transfigured his shirt into a tartan green flannel shirt. He put a heating charm on himself and passionately kissed Xiana, and said, "I'll see you at the lair later this evening. Stay safe love." With that he apparated back to the castle.

Harry had apparated inside Myrtle's bathroom and made his way to charms class. Harry made his way outside of class and waited for professor Flitwick to let them in. Harry noticed many people looking at him but he ignored them all. Harry was going over his idea for a magical bomb when he noticed the professor approaching.

Finally the tiny professor made his way to the front of the door when he noticed young Harry Potter leaning against the wall. When it came to charms, it seems that young Potter inherited his mother's talent. His work this year in charms has been nothing short of brilliant. Too bad he was going to miss yet another one of his classes. The small professor approached the Potter heir and said, "Mr. Potter, I was informed by the headmaster that you are to see him right away. I believe it has to do with yesterday's altercations."

Harry sighed and shook his head and said, "Very well sir." With that Harry made his way to the headmaster's office. As he passed the students, he kept hearing whispers about him. God, Harry thought, these fucking people were pathetic. They really needed to get a life or get laid. Harry finally reached the gargoyle statue and realized once more that the professor had not given him the password. God he hated playing these stupid games. Harry took caution to the wind and bellowed, " Headmaster, I suggest you open the entrance and let me in right now, or I'll be seeing you another day."

Harry suddenly saw the stone statues parting and he made his way to the headmaster's office. As he neared the top of the office he could hear voices. To his surprise he saw Percy Weasley, the minister of magic dear old Cornelius Fudge, Auror Dawlish, and Wedemire.

The headmaster looked at Harry and said, "There was a time Harry where you enjoyed guessing the password. All children seem to enjoy doing it."

Harry looked at the headmaster with as cold a face as he could muster and replied, "When I was a child I though as a child and I acted as child. When I became a man, I gave up childish things. Corinthian."

Standing to the right of the headmaster was McGonagall, and on his left was none other then bat boy himself Snivellus Snape. He looked up at Snape to find him sneering at him and said, "To think that you couldn't possibly have a bigger head, now you think that you are a man?"

Harry couldn't help himself and looked straight into Snape's eyes and sneered back, "You know Snape, they can now cure a sneer like yours at birth."

Snape's face took on an ugly puce color and spat, "You see headmaster, a total lack of respect for his superiors. Just like his father and his mongrel mother."

Harry snarled back, "The day you are superior to me you greasy lipped baboon is the day pigs fly and shit ten pound diamonds." Snape was about to pull his wand on him but Harry was quicker.

The headmaster stood up and bellowed, "Enough! Both of you sit down. We have some issues to discuss. Please act like the adults you are supposed to be."

Harry remained standing for a little bit but finally found a chair and sat. The ministry goons said nothing but gave Harry a disdained look. Dumbledore said, "Now we are here to discuss what happened yesterday and find a solution. Now Mr. Potter could you please tell us your side of the story."

Harry sighed and started telling them his side of the story. When he was done, he looked at Cornelius Fudge and found him giving him a sickly sweet smile. Fudge cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. Harry just rolled his eyes at the buffoon's display of importance. Fudge said, "Well headmaster, it would seem that from what Professor Snape told us along with Mr. Potter's colorful rendition of the events. I feel that the ministry has no choice but to go along with Professor Snape's testimony." Fudge was looking at Harry and smirking the whole time.

Fudge seeing no reply from Harry decided to continue his speech and said, "Now I am inclined to believe that these death eater children were forced to take the mark. There is no evidence that they have done anything wrong. I am inclined to believe Dumbledore and there may be a chance to salvage them and have them work for the light side. At any rate, they are still minors and until they prove that they are true death eaters, we shall let them continue their studies."

Harry couldn't believe his ears. Did those idiotic morons actually believe that Malfoy and his goons had been forced to take the mark? Anyone hearing Malfoy's rants and raves about the beautiful reign of the Dark Lord and the purebloods could tell he had been a death eater at heart since he was old enough to walk. Of course, Harry had no illusions about Fudge's motives. The man had no end to his vices. He would sell out his entire family just to stay in power. Harry wanted to know his true motives however, and looked at smirking Fudge straight in the eye and carefully brought his Legillimens powers to bear.

Harry carefully probed the man's surface memories and couldn't believe the man's gall. Harry found out that Fudge received a generous campaign contribution from Lucius Malfoy last night for keeping his son and his pals at Hogwarts. Harry also found out that Fudge was having an affair with Monica Edgecombe, who worked in the records department. Fudge apparently knew that she was a death eater but kept seeing her. Next Harry found that Fudge was scared of him and his popularity with the people. He wanted to severely discredit him. Given a chance he would throw him in Azkaban without a moment's notice. One last memory that intrigued him was a plot between him and the headmaster involving something called a _Prima Nupta_.

Harry broke contact with Fudge and found himself looking at Percy Weasley. Harry quickly scanned his surface memories and found the man to be even more pompous than he ever imagined. He further scanned his memories until he found one that shocked him to the core. Percy had been initiated as a death eater. God, Harry couldn't imagine what Bill would say.

Harry quickly left his memories and stood up. Harry carefully looked around the room, noticed Snape smirking at him as though he had won a war of sorts. Keep thinking that you stupid bat, Harry thought, when the time comes I'll be hearing your screams of mercy. As for Fudge, if he thought that he was going to anger him into doing something stupid, he and his sycophants were going to be sorely disappointed.

Harry gave them his coldest face yet and said, "Well it's just as I expected from the ministry and this school, which is nothing! If you are willing to believe a death eater professor who happens to be godfather to one Draco Malfoy, who is also a branded death eater, then I guess the Wizarding world has never heard the concept of CONFLICT OF INTEREST. Frankly, I truly don't give a shit what the ministry or this school thinks or does anymore. You want to allow death eaters free access to this school and let them loose in our society then be my guests. With you guys in power we are going to lose this war anyway. Remember this, you can protect them all you want, but they will meet justice in the end just the same."

By then Percy the git was sneering at him and shot back, "Who the hell do you think you are talking to the minister in such a rude manner. I sure am glad my younger brother is no longer friends with you. Severing ties with you was the best thing he ever did."

Harry completely ignored him and turned to leave when Fudge bellowed, "What do you mean boy that they will meet justice in the end?"

Harry turned around to see Fudge turning a beautiful shade of puce reminiscent of his dearly departed uncle and replied, "Well I thought it was rather obvious unless you don't bother reading the news. They will eventually meet the Scorpion Sorcerer and from what I hear, he just loves dealing with death eaters in the most gruesome way possible. Personally, if I ever meet him I'll make sure to buy him some cookies and milk. I might even give him a medal." Harry gave them all a very evil smile.

Harry saw their faces blanch at his last remark and said, "Good day all." and walked out of the headmaster's office. He could still hear the idiot minister trying to form a coherent sentence, and then Percy was all incensed when Harry hadn't even bothered responding to him. Well, one thing for sure the game was about to come up a notch. The headmaster was up to something with Fudge, and Snape had something up his sleeve. Well what will come will come he thought.

_**Two weeks later October 15**_

Harry was sitting at his lab bench looking at the five brooms currently finished. After many design revisions and many new charms added, Harry was looking at the most advanced broom in the Wizarding world. Harry had called the new brooms the _**Raptor XB**_. Many of the changes dealt with the aerodynamic, power distribution and charms added to the broom for comfort and navigation. The broom handle was made of the finest Lignum Vitae, which was also known as Ironwood. This wood originally came from the West Indies.

The broom handle was six feet long and two inches in diameter. A 1/4-inch hole was drilled at the center of the broom handle. Just like his wand core, Harry had fused a powdered Amethysts layer onto a Naquadria core. He charged up the crystal's layer and put in a permanent stasis field on the crystals to prevent them from discharging. The crystals would act as a focusing chamber. Around the grip region, Harry had drilled 1/8-inch holes perpendicular to the axis of the broom. The holes were drilled at every thirty degrees and each ring was set at a half inch apart over a six-inch length. The holes were also filled with Naquadria, which was directly fused to the Naquadria core in the broom handle. This provided a much easier path for a person's magic to access the broom's bristle. With this arrangement, a person's magic was directly amplified a hundred times and would be channelled directly to the broom bristle assembly where the propulsion took place.

Harry had totally redesigned the back end of the broom. Wizard kind had until now used magical wood for bristles. The problem with wood bristle was two folds. First, there was a limit on how small you could make the bristle. The size of the bristles and how tightly they were packed was directly linked to how much of a person's magic was converted to propulsion. The larger the bristle the more magical energy was lost to heat. In trying to explain broom speed limitations, Harry had found his answer in muggle transformers in their electrical generating stations.

In muggle transformers, the biggest contributor to no-load losses was hysteresis losses. Hysteresis losses came from the molecules in the core laminations, which resisted being magnetized and demagnetized by the alternating magnetic field. This resistance by the molecules of the core material caused friction that resulted in heat. In other words a material's internal makeup with its imperfections caused some of the electrical energy to be converted into heat.

Wood is notoriously imperfect. The grains boundary inside the wood change dramatically. The grain sizes were also not uniform due to resin pocket formations. These were brought about by temperature and the amount of sunlight a tree got. All these factors affected the grain size from year to year. The uniformity of the bristle arrangement also affected the magical energy distribution. The density of the magical energy along with an even distribution determines speed and manoeuvring of a magical broom. Harry had completely done away with wood bristles and after much experimenting, had managed to create a uniform wire sized bristle. The bristles were the size of a muggle copper paper clip.

The bristle itself was made of a Naquadria core with a rhenium sheath. One end of the bristles was directly wound and fused to a six-inch bit of Naquadria core sticking out of the broom handle. Once again, the rhenium would come in handy in dissipating the heat created in the core of the bristle assembly. The entire shape of the bristle assembly looked like an elongated tear drop whose end was flattened and three inches off the tip of the tear drop had been cut and bound in a rhenium band. There were three bands placed in equidistance on the bristle assembly.

The top most band closest to the broom handle had the charms encased in runes. Harry wanted the charms held in runes made of black diamond inlaid within the top most rhenium band. Harry liked to use runes whenever possible instead of casting the charms directly on the object because they would be much more powerful and would last forever. The charms themselves were relatively simple. There was a modified banishment charm, which was the basis of your propulsion system. Then there was the levitation charm layered to the banishment charm. Harry had managed to develop with the help of Yadislav and Xiana a set of manoeuvring charms tied to the rider's thoughts. One simply had to think where to go and the broom would follow. Yadislav had been so excited in developing the charms that he spent his every waking moment when he was not teaching developing the new Arithmancy equations with Xiana.

They had added shield charms tied to the velocity of the broom, heat charms, and a disillusion charm. Due to the Naquadria core, they had magical power to burn. They had added a bubble charm for high altitude flying. Several cushioning and stability charms had been added for maximum comfort to the rider. The best charm added to date had been the terrain mapping charm. Harry had some of the spare watches he had bought for everyone, just like the one he had bought over the summer. They had copied and modified his watch ability to create a map of the terrain that identified structures, friends, and enemies. A high quality gem crystal was fitted at the end of the broom handle that would act as the pick up lens.

With this charm in place, they could identify the terrain from far above. Touching a rune on top of the broom handle activated the charm like all the others and a three-dimensional HUD display would show up in font of the rider. This is where the beauty of the thought-activated manoeuvring charm came in handy. A person only needed to think of a target spotted on the HUD and the broom would automatically take you there. Also, on the upper right hand corner of the HUD, vital flight statistics were now available.

They developed and layered an altitude, temperature, and velocity information charms within the structure of the mapping charm. Harry had used powdered emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and diamonds for the runes casting. The runes had been carved on top of the broom handle just above the handgrip for easy access. The runes themselves were tied to the Naquadria core via a 1/8-inch hole drilled underneath the runes. The holes were once again filled with Naquadria, which fused the runes to the core of the broom handle.

Finally, the footrest was also made of rhenium and was charmed to swivel with the person's body. If a person was sitting, then the footrest laid directly below the broom so that a person could use their legs for support. If a person were flying at maximum speed then the footrest would swivel along side the bristle assembly to provide a maximum aerodynamic profile. The last charm that was added was a reduction and an enlargement charm tied to that person's magical signature and was activated via a password. In other words, only that person to whom the runes had been charged with the person's magical energy could enlarge or reduce the broom. This was very convenient since the broom could be carried on a chain around a person's neck. To anyone else it would look like a piece of jewellery. Harry was planning on trying out his new broom later that afternoon.

The other great piece of work that had taken place these last two weeks had been the invention of his magical bombs. He now had ten Naquadah and ten Naquadria bombs. They were about the size of a soccer ball, and were constructed of interlocking patterns of pentagons and hexagons. The pentagons and hexagons were about half and inch in thickness. These patterns were sitting directly on top of a quartz ball, which was the size of volleyball. Centered inside the soccer ball was the volleyball size crystal quartz. The surface of the volleyball size ultra pure crystal also had half-inch thick pieces shaped into interlocking hexagon and pentagon patterns fused to the quartz ball.

These cut shapes were layered with an _Incendio_ and a _Reducto-Maximus_ spell. The patterns were also frozen in a stasis field. There was a crystal shaft running from a marble size amethyst gem at the center of the quarts ball to the surface of the soccer ball. The marble was charmed with timing and a stasis field cancellation charm. The quarts ball was fully charged with raw magical energy. To activate the bomb a tap of the wand on the tip of the crystal shaft would activate the count down charm. The first tap created a five-minute countdown. Every tap of the wand after that would add ten minutes to the countdown up to a maximum of forty-five minutes.

Another fantastic thing that had occurred was Bill's and Fleur wedding. They had followed Xiana and him into doing the ancient Celtic wizarding marriage ritual. The wedding took place on September 30. The day had been utterly perfect. It had been a beautiful and sunny day, with clear evening skies. Fleur's parents had been utterly enthralled to take part in the ceremony. Gabrielle had been so excited to meet him again. Poor child had been disappointed to find out he was married. Three weeks ago, Bill had asked Harry if it was ok to bring and allow his Goblin boss to be master of ceremony.

Harry had readily agreed. This would go a long way to help build ties between the two races. Goblins were one of the more ancient magical races. Harry had given Bill a portkey to give the Goblins. Well it so happens that when Bill had given his boss the portkey and told his boss that he could bring ten other Goblins with him, Harry never expected to see the high Goblin council appear at Potter castle. To say that Bill was shocked was an understatement. What was even more significant was that a goblin matriarch was in attendance. She was a high priestess and matriarch of their Naib. Humans almost never saw Goblin females.

Everyone in the wedding party recognized the significant event that was taking place and formalities had been followed to the letter. Harry led the introductions and made sure to tell the Goblins what an honor it was to have them take part in their ancient marriage ritual. There were two more significant events, which had occurred that evening. Before the marriage ceremony, Bill had asked Harry to invoke the ancient blood magic and rituals for their wedding rings. Harry went to the center of the obelisk and disrobed leaving only a loincloth. Bill and Fleur were standing opposite of each other when Harry heard the Goblins gasp. He then heard the Goblin matriarch bellow _Entari- Shakouro._ Harry turned around to find the Goblin party approaching him. They came to within ten feet of him and as one bowed to him. Harry feeling very self-conscious bowed back to them.

Harry then asked them if something was wrong. The Goblin matriarch told him that he carried the mark of the ancients. She asked him where he got that mark, and much to his distress he explained his training and in the end admitted to them that he was the Scorpion Sorcerer that they had heard about in the news. The matriarch then asked him if he was willing to demonstrate that he knew the ancient magic. Harry looked around at the wedding party and hoped to God that he could convince the Goblins that he knew the ancient magic. Harry agreed, only because of whom he was dealing with.

Harry took out his wand and summoned a desert storm at the edge of the cliff. He then summoned giant scorpions much to everyone's yelps. The matriarch had then uttered _Katari-Mati. _She had approached him, bowed and traced a rune on his chest that glowed deep green and then blue and finally black. The other Goblins gasped but said nothing. The matriarch turned to the Goblin council and said he is the one. Golderek who was head of the Goblin high council said, "Sorry for the confusion Mr. Potter, but the mark of the ancient is something that my people remember very well and have a profound respect for.

You see Mr. Potter over three thousand years ago the high priest helped a large faction of the Goblin nation fight a deadly enemy that would have surely killed them off. They had used their brand of magic during battle with great effectiveness. The enemy was completely massacred." With that Harry had acknowledged the confusion and the wedding ceremony went ahead. The next big shock came at the conclusion of Bill and Fleur vows when they carried out the blood ritual and summoned the image of a _Gallak_, an ancient magical dragon that lived deep in underground caves. The Goblin had once again taken that sign as a good omen. After that everyone enjoyed a supper time.

Harry had noticed many couples get closer together, Blaise and Ginny, Luna and Neville, Remus and Tonks to name a few. That night had ended with the head of the Goblin high council asking Harry if he could come in early November to talk to the United Goblin Council. Harry had agreed and thus ended a very interesting wedding day.

Harry had also fulfilled his promises to Anubis the day before the wedding ceremony and had gone to Egypt with him to find more of his kind. Harry had taken that opportunity to transform into his animagus form and had taken Anubis on an air ride. His familiar had been very excited at seeing the ground from high up. Harry had laughed at his familiar's explanation of the event. Harry had flown into the Valley of the Kings. They ended up landing at what must have been an ancient temple and they had made a ritual calling.

Seven more temple snakes had shown up. Harry portkeyed every one to Potter castle. Harry ended up expanding Anubis' private pad to accommodate the others of his kind. It seemed that Anubis was the most senior of them all and so had laid down the law for them. They had all taken the oath with Harry. However all the other snakes knew that Harry was Anubis' familiar. Snakes apparently were very jealous and didn't like to share.

Has last thoughts were on the launch of their newsprint _Discovery_. Apparently his name for the print won out. He couldn't attend the voting, but apparently it had been unanimous. Its first debut occurred last weekend. Harry had been in the great hall having lunch when the owls started delivering the daily prophet. As soon as the student picked up the daily prophet, a copy of the Discovery also appeared. Their first set of articles involved revealing Voldemort's true parentage with actual facts to back it up.

The article basically told the public that the Dark Lord was far from being a pureblood and the paper had a copy of the birth certificate and his time at Hogwarts along with a description of his anagram. The second article gave a detailed explanation of Darwin's theory of evolution along with the supporting equations showing an increase in muggle born wizards and witches over the last thousands years and linking it to evolutionary pressures. There was also an in-depth article on the muggle Gregor Mendel and his work in genetics. The article explained the consequences of inbreeding. Harry had laughed at the Slytherins' faces. Harry looked on to see a serious looking headmaster and gave him an evil smile. Stupid bastard, try hiding the god damn truth now, Harry thought.

Sources through the grapevine had shown that the Voldemort was right pissed with the paper. Well, let's see him try to answer his pureblood crew now. Harry was brought out of his musing when he heard Yadislav ask him if he was going to try the new brooms. Harry looked at his watch and noticed it was 3:00 PM and said, "Might as well since I don't have any classes and I have loads of time until suppertime". Harry picked up his new broom and apparated under the Gryffindor bleachers on the Quidditch pitch.

_Little did Harry know how long the night was going to be? _

_**October 15, 3:15 PM Riddle Manor in little Hangleton**_

Voldemort was pacing around his throne reviewing once more time his plan of attack. Voldemort felt it was high time to hit fast and hard and let the masses fear his name again. The articles of that bloody paper had thrown him into a towering rage. It mocked him in every way. If he ever found out who was writing it and were it was located, he would make sure that they died a very painful and slow death. How dare they mock Lord Voldemort, heir to the great and noble Salazar Slytherin? He would have struck sooner but the loss of his funds has created many problems for him. Finally Voldemort had enough and bellowed, "Where the hell is Snape?"

As if on cue, Severus Snape walked into the throne room and bowed low before his Lord and said, "Sorry my master, but the old fool kept delaying me."

Voldemort was in no mood for excuses, and whipped out his wand and bellowed, _"Crucio."_ Snape crumpled to the ground writhing in absolute pain. Voldemort held the spell for almost thirty seconds before lifting it and said, "Let that be a lesson to you Snape, I will not tolerate excuses. I want you to tell our operatives at Hogwarts to carry on with their task. I will see you here at 7:30 PM sharp. We will begin our attack at 8:00 p.m. You will be part of the group that attacks the Weasley in Romania. This time I will know if you have double-crossed me Snape. I want this to be a complete success. You are dismissed."

Snap bowed his head and exited the throne room. Severus kept cursing his life for the absolute mess that it was. If he let the Weasley die, then this could very well cause the old man to lose trust in him. Well, he thought, he would cross that bridge when he got there. Thankfully the raids were happening at night and therefore they would all assume that he was in his quarters. Now the next thing was for Draco to carry out his task and not arouse any suspicion. Draco and his pals were to take part in tonight's raids. Hopefully the Zabini girl would be easy prey. Severus apparated back to Hogsmeade and quickly made his way to the castle to meet with Draco, Crabbe and Goyle.

_**October 15, 4:30 p.m Headmaster office**_

Albus Dumbledore adjusted his glasses and was now addressing two of his students Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and said, "It is imperative that you incapacitate Mr. Potter. Once you have done this bring him to the Shrieking Shack and I will meet you there. I am hoping that in a weakened state I will be able to modify his mind and make him accept his new destiny. Due to him being an accomplished Occlumens I will not be able to wipe his memories, however I can plant new directives. One of which will be to go through the _Prima Nupta_ ritual and marry my great, great, great grand niece. That arranged marriage will bring him back under our control. You all know what is at stake. The Wizarding world is counting on you. Now how many D.A members do you have with you?"

Hermione Granger was the first one to answer and said, "We have ten more with us sir."

Dumbledore replied, "Very good, that should be more than enough fire power to subdue him. We need to put an end to his rebellion once and for all. You will find that he has gone flying, which is very fortunate as you can ambush him from the player's bleachers. I'll see you when your task is done. Good luck."

Ron and Hermione both exited his office and Dumbledore felt that he would once again have control of Harry once more. All that was needed was the proper application of superior intellect and patience, he mused.

_**October 15, 5:00 p.m. Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch**_

Harry couldn't believe the performance of his new broom. It was responding to him as if it was an extension of his body. Harry had clocked a maximum speed of 575 (km/hr). All of the charms were working as predicted. The mapping system was an absolute dream. It had created a tree dimensional map of the Quidditch pitch and was showing all of the hoops and stands in intricate detail from a height of 2000 feet.

The heating, windshield, and cushioning charms were also working to perfection. Harry made another pass over the stands and noticed dots appearing on his HUD. He counted twelve of them hiding in the stands. Harry zoomed on the map and noticed some of the names, Granger, Weasley, Cho Chang, Zacharias Smith, Lorne Green and many others. Harry's sixth sense was working overdrive.

They weren't having a social get together that much was for certain. He was the only one out here and the way they were positioned looked like a cross fire to the only path leading back to the castle. Harry decided to play along, but he was going to have a little surprise for them. Harry banked his broom upwards and went ballistic. Harry made sure that he was high enough that they could not spot him. He then pictured the cliffs by Potter castle and apparated himself with his broom to the cliff. When he was there he banked his broom straight for the castle. Once he landed, he hurried through the doors and made his way to the master bedroom.

He heard Xiana and Remus race upstairs to meet him. Harry went to his wardrobe and found his Basilisk battle robes. He stripped and wore his pants, vest, boots, and cloak. He made sure to fasten his katana and secured his wands in his boot and holster. Xiana was the first to enter the room and said, "Honey, what's going on, why the battle gear?" She looked frightened and Harry went to her and gave her a hug.

Remus came in shortly after and noticed Harry in battle robes and his face suddenly took on a very business look and said, "What going on Harry?"

Harry explained what he had seen, and was preparing to meet the party, he finally told them to get into their gear and get to the Scorpion lair. Things were going to heat up. He asked them to get to the command center and monitor the castle.

They both acknowledged and Harry quickly ran back down to the library and hissed, "Great one I need you tonight"

Anubis slithered out from his pyramid and replied, "Master, I am yours to command. I sense a great tension in your mind master."

Harry hissed back, "We may be going into battle my friend,"

Harry could see Anubis coiling with anticipation when he said, "I was getting bored with all of the gossip around here master, I will welcome the action."

Harry smiled at his familiar and put out his hand to allow Anubis to crawl inside his Basilisk vest and coil around his chest with his head raised above his left shoulder. Harry put a disillusion charm on himself and ran back to his broom. He picked up his broom and went ballistic until he was about 1500 feet in the air and pictured the Quidditch pitch in his mind and apparated back to Hogwarts.

Once he was above the Quidditch pitch he brought his broom to the North end of the pitch and landed. He shrunk his broom and hooked it to his platinum chain around his neck. He then stowed it inside his Basilisk vest. Harry took out his new wand. He was sick of the shit going on at Hogwarts and was not going to play the old bastard's games anymore. Harry cast a protego shield charm and an alarm charm on himself. He stowed his wand inside the sleeve of his robe and proceeded towards the castle.

Harry walked past the stands, acting as if nothing was wrong. He made it look like he was intent on getting to the castle. Shortly after, when he passed the stands, the show started. The first volley to hit him was made up of no less than six stunners. His shield rebounded the six S_tupefy_ spells. The next volley of spells was made up of three _Reducto _exploding curses and three _Offensio _which were powerful bludgeoning spells.

Harry's _Protego_ shield finally broke and Harry leaned to the right and dodged the first bludgeoning spell, but took the other to his chest. Harry was blown backward and out of breath.

Harry was on his stomach and had difficulty breathing. He looked up just in time to see twelve more spells heading his way. Harry had just enough time to cast _Praestigiae- Tutela_ and _Nisi-šen-šen._ The first one was an illusion ward to keep people from seeing the real battle and the second was his dark arts shield. By now, Harry was utterly pissed. These fuckers were going for the kill, he thought.

Well, Harry thought, it was high time to answer back in kind. His shield absorbed all of the incoming spells. Harry's ears were ringing by then. He quickly vaulted back to his feet and took out his second Naquadria wand. Harry then layered a series of spells designed to take down their defensive position and incapacitate his opponent until he could get within physical striking distance. Harry soundlessly cast at full power to both positions the layered spells _Gu-ul-þara/ Solaris-_ _Optimus /_ _Offensio/Stupefy/_ _Inferorum-Animas. _Harry then apparated inside the Quidditch pitch just as the confusion was taking effect.

The first spell was a dark blasting hex that was much more powerful than the _Reducto_ curse, and covered a much larger area. The second spell would temporarily blind his opponents. The third spell was a bludgeoning spell to the body to weaken of breaks their shields. The fourth spell was a stunning spell and the last spell was a conjuration spell that sent ice balls at very high velocity to his opponents. Had they been death eaters Harry thought, he would have conjured metal lances.

Underneath the Gryffindor bleacher, Hemione and Ron were jubilant as they thought that they had gotten Harry when he went down. They thought for sure that they had him. That was until they saw their spells being absorbed by an emerald green shield. Hermione had never seen a shield of that color before. The next thing they saw was Potter vaulting to his feet and they could all see his magical aura blazing. They then saw him wave his wand in an intricate pattern but no sound could be heard, but Hermione knew it wasn't good.

She suddenly bellowed, "Everyone cast your most powerful shield charms now!" Suddenly Hermione heard a tremendous explosion. She was thrown to the ground along with all of her party and was hit by the most intense light she had ever seen. She was immediately blinded. She instinctively shut her eyes and felt a powerful bludgeoning spell followed by a stupefy spell hit her shield. The power of the spells was unbelievable. The power was such that even her Auror shield shattered into oblivion. At that point, she rolled to her left and collided with Ron. She shakily got to her feet along with Ron when they were hit by a series of ice ball. One of the balls hit her left shoulder and dislocated it. Ron received a direct hit to his left fibula, which caused a hairline fracture to the bone. Ron roared in pain and now only had minimal use of his left leg.

Meanwhile, underneath the Ravenclaw bleachers, Cho Chang's group was doing even worse then Hermione. She had lost half her party to the counter offensive. Many had either fractured or broken bones and were moaning on the ground. The only one of her party not injured was Zacharias Smith, Nina Montague and herself. Cho looked to see where Potter was, but he was no longer at his position.

Where was he, she wondered. She let her magic move around her until she felt the hair at the back of her neck rise up and looked towards the Quidditch pitch. For a second she had a total look of surprise on her face, this lasted about a second when she bellowed, " Potter is on the Quidditch pitch." Cho wanted to make him pay for all the sadness in her life that he had been responsible for. She started launching painful near dark spells at him. Everyone seemed to be following her lead. To her amazement, none of her spells hit home. At that point they all knew that they were in deep shit.

Harry had enough of this crap. He recognized some of the spells as dark spells just from reading their aura. Harry had brought on his aura reading capability and decided to feed on some happy energy. He brought forth his Dementor aura to maximum power. The ground around him suddenly started to frost. He left his most powerful shield on and quickly closed the gap between him and his assailants.

Harry could immediately see the effect that his Dementor aura was having on his assailants. They were all disoriented and sickly looking. Hermione cast a Patronus charm at him but it had no effect. All it did was keep her from feeling worst. As he approached Cho Chang, Harry decided to completely throw her off her game. He layered a few more stunners and jinxes which shattered their shields. Harry could tell from reading their aura that they no longer had any shields.

With and evil smirk he cast _Abeo-Vestitus _at both attacking parties. He always wanted to try that spell in a battle and see the results. Suddenly, the attackers' clothes vanished from their bodies, and they were left in the bare. Harry could hear screaming from his attackers as they were trying to find anything to cover themselves with. When they had lost their clothes, they had completely forgotten about the battle. Harry gave them all an evil smirk. After that, the battle quickly ended when Harry cast _Accio Wands_/ I_ncarserous-Metallum_ at them and watched, as the wands flew to his hands, and they were all immobilized with metal ropes. He stunned all but three of them.

Cho realized what had happened and knew she needed to get away from the scene. Amazing as that was, the twelve of them had lost to one person. There was no way in hell she was going to let Potter see her in all her glory. Damn that bloody bastard she thought. She looked to her right and noticed that Hermione was in the same boat as her and she was frantically trying to get out of the bleacher area. Just as she was about to clear the last wooden beam she was incarcerated with metallic ropes.

Harry watched his prey giving him venomous looks. He transfigured wooden post and stuck them to the post with a sticking charm. He had them facing each other. Harry approached Cho Chang and said, "Well, well, well who do we have here. Ah yes now I remember, the wench who wouldn't stop crying. As much of an emotional sop that you are, I must say Cho, you do have a nice set of Tatas and well trimmed in your special region I might add. Oh, don't you worry your pretty little face. I am much more interested in attacking your mind then your body."

Harry suddenly whipped around and gave his former friend a murderous look and with his voice dripping with venom said, "My, my, you bloody bastards just don't fucking get it, do you? I told you that I wanted nothing to do with you, but yet again you feel you have to try and control my life just like that slimy mother fucker of a headmaster. In fact I find myself wondering why you would attack me without provocation. I have a strong suspicion that this was a very well orchestrated plan by someone who wants to regain some form of control over me. Rest assured, in a minute I will find out what this little attack was all about. "

Harry began hissing," Great one, are you all right? I was afraid that you were hurt when I was hit in the chest."

Anubis replied, "No master I am fine. What do you want me to do, master?"

Harry replied, "I want you to scan the girl on the right pole and the boy to my left. Scan their memories and tell me later what they were thinking. I need to know why they are willing to attack me. Don't worry great one, I have a feeling that you will be biting many death eaters very soon."

Anubis hissed back, "This is fun master. I will have many stories to tell the others when we go home,"

Harry couldn't help smiling at his familiar. Anubis was such an adrenaline junky. Harry turned back to look at Weasley and Granger.

Hermione with as much disgust as she could muster on her face replied, "You will release us immediately, or I'll make sure you pay for the rest of your life. How dare you humiliate and degrade us in this fashion. I can't believe I ever considered you a friend!" She spat the last.

Harry let go of his control and backhanded her across the face. Her head snapped back and blood was dripping from her nose, and Harry said with pure spitefulness, "Real friends don't betray each other like you did so callously. Real friends don't lie to each other. Real friends stand by each other and protect each other, and they sure as hell don't agree with an authority figure to sacrifice them for the greater good. So don't you dare play the wounded duck card with me you fucking bitch, because I'll not stand for it."

By that time Ron was yelling obscene profanity at him. Harry had enough and simply punched him in the face. Harry ended up busting his nose. Harry looked at Ron straight in the eyes and said, "As for you, carrot head. What I said to the beaver goes for you as well. You are just too stupid to understand what it's all about. You have the greatest wealth in the world right under your nose and you can't even see it. You don't deserve the name Weasley. Did you know by the way that your dear brother Percy is a death eater? If you don't believe me, stun him and cast _finite-incantatum_ on his left arm."

Harry looked at all of their faces with disgust and said, "Now as much fun as we are having here, it's time to get on with business." Harry went to Hermione and roughly grabbed her by the hair and lifter her face so that her eyes could meet his. She closed her eyes and Harry took his thumbs and opened her eyelids.

He brought forth his Legillimens ability and pushed into her thoughts. It appears the little bitch has learned some Occlumency Harry thought. As far as he was concerned she deserved no mercy for what she had done. He put all the power he had and utterly smashed all of her barriers and mental shields. She was no match for his mental attack and Harry ruthlessly delved into the deepest part of her thoughts. It was just as Harry thought, the old bastard had orchestrated this attack on him. Apparently Dumbledore wanted to blood bond himself to him via a pre-arranged marriage with his great, great, grand niece using a very obscure law called _Prima Nupta._

It appears that the beaver didn't know what the obscure law was all about but Harry finally remembered what it was. Harry had studied all of the ancient wizarding laws with Xiana over their summer studies. The law was used to prevent old pureblood families from becoming extinct or to solve ancient feuds and conflicts between families. Due to magical rites, the law annulled all previous transgressions between families be it law suits, duels or other nasty problems.

So the bastard thought that he could trap him and in a weakened state invade his mind and plant false memories to make him want to marry his great, great grand niece. One little problem in Dumbledore's plan was that he was already married using the oldest marriage rituals known to their world. Forcing a marriage ceremony over a previously established bond would cause the transgressor to lose their magic. All Harry needed to do was to send him a copy that he was already married without giving away whom he was married to and Dumbledore would drop his little scheme real fast.

Harry pulled out of Hermione thoughts and noticed she was in pain. Breaking her mental shield the way he did would give her a serious headache for the rest of the week that was for certain. Harry decided not to get into Cho Chang's head after all. He was starting to feel tired. Harry finally said, "I will only say this once. The next time you attack me it will be a fight to the death. I am sick of playing your fucking bullshit games. Heed my warning or pay the price. Oh yeah, tell Dumbledore that I know his game plan, and that this is another notch in his coffin. I will be keeping these memories in a Pensieve. I am quite sure the Wizengamot would love to see first hand what Dumbledore's manipulations are really like."

Harry looked at Ron's furious face and decided to leave him a little memento. Harry cast the following spell _Exstructio-Penis_/ _Coxendix-_ _Saltatio/ Eiaculari_. Suddenly Ron had a huge erection in front of the women and his hips started gyrating up and down. Cho and Hermione were screaming for him to stop himself. Ron was tomato red in the face, and couldn't help himself moaning. Harry had never laughed so hard in his life.

If carrot head thought that was bad, he will be shocked to see what happens when his hip action is finished. Harry had no intention to see the final outcome. Finally, Harry cast a heating charm on them so that they wouldn't freeze to death. Who knew how long it was going to take for them to be found. Harry ended up casting the heat charm on all the unconscious bodies on the ground. Harry didn't give a shit if they were hurt or not. They wouldn't be hurt if they hadn't tried to attack him in the first place. They deserve the pain. Harry was by now in his full fury.

Harry made his way to the West side of the castle and cancelled his illusion ward. Let the old fool find out the true cost of attacking him. Harry checked his watch and noticed that it was 6:00 PM. Harry apparated to the Scorpion lair to find the place buzzing with chaos. Xiana came running to him crying. She was sobbing in his arms and holding him tight. She kept saying "Not my sister, not my sister." Harry looked into Blaise's eyes and noticed the pure rage on his face. Standing beside him was none other then Theo Nott. Harry had no idea what the Slytherin was doing there but he would look into it later. He saw Theo nodding at him, and he nodded back.

Harry looked at the table and notice Brianna lying on the table. She had many cuts on her arms and legs and looked to be in a catatonic state. His tutors were applying all of their medical knowledge to heal her. Harry immediately recognized her condition as _Crucio _over exposure. Harry looked into Neville's eyes and noticed an almost insane fire in his eyes. His parents had succumbed to the _Cruciatus_ curse.

The _Cruciatus_ curse didn't actually cause physical damage. The curse tricked the victim's brain into thinking that the pain was real. Depending on the duration of the curse, the victim's magic could turn against its owner. The result would be physical manifestations such as cuts and bruises, or neurological backlash, or both.

Harry believed that Brianna had locked herself within her own mind where her magic would keep her there in a safe place away from the perceived pain of the _Cruciatus._ The curse was no longer on her, but Brianna had fled into the deep recesses of her consciousness. She had hidden in her mind to escape her body and didn't know that the curse was gone. Harry likened the effect of _Cruciatus _somewhat to the muggle medical condition known as autism.

_**Earlier that afternoon**_

Brianna was walking from her dorm in the dungeons, with the intent to reach the library to meet Theo. She picked her watch from her pocket and noticed that it was already 5:15 p.m. Bloody hell she thought she was already fifteen minutes late. She was in such a rush that she never bothered setting the perimeter detection charms on herself.

She had passed the potions lab when her world went black. Draco, Crabbe and Goyle had ambushed Brianna. Unknown to the mini death eaters, she was still holding her watch in her left hand when they picked her up. They never noticed the watch slipping out of her hand and unto the ground. Her new wand was safely tucked inside her left boot and was protected with a disillusion charm. Nobody would be able to find her new wand except her. However, her old wand, which was strapped to her wand holster on her arm, had been taken away and snapped.

Meanwhile, Theo was looking at his watch and was getting a bit worried. His girlfriend Brianna was never late for any of her appointments. Being on time was like a religion to her. She was already well over fifteen minutes late. Blaise showed up with Ginny Weasley and Theo ran to them, and said, "Blaise, have you seen Brianna?"

Blaise replied, "I haven't seen her since lunch. What's the problem?"

Theo was deep in thought, he then turned to Blaise, and said, "She was supposed to meet me for our study session, but she is over fifteen minutes late. Brianna is never late for her appointments. Did you happen to notice that Malfoy and his goons kept looking at her during lunch time?"

Blaise suddenly felt like an iceberg slid down his spine and thought back to the conversation he had with his father the previous week. His father had recounted his confrontation with Malfoy Senior. Blaise replied in a dangerous voice, "We have to find her immediately." Blaise pulled Theo and Ginny to a secluded corner of the library and cast a silencing charm. He then turned to Theo and his girlfriend and told them about his conversation with his father. After, Blaise finished recounting the event Theo looked even more panicked.

Theo spat, "I swear if those bastards hurt her, I will fucking destroy them."

Blaise made an instant decision and said, "Theo I know how we can find her, but I need you to swear on your magic that what you are about to see, you will not reveal to anyone."

Theo looked deep into Blaise eyes and swore on his magic. He would do anything for Brianna. He loved her more than anything in the world. If something happened to her, he didn't know what he would do.

Blaise looked around and when he saw nobody within their vicinity he muttered a spell and Theo noticed a ring with a scorpion appear on his right hand. Blaise looked at Theo and said, "Theo, please touch my ring. Ginny you know where we are going." She looked a little apprehensive, but knew that this was an emergency situation and Harry would approve. If things didn't work out later on, they could always obliviate Theo.

They all immediately portkeyed to the Scorpion lair and they met Remus and his older sister. By now, their Tutors were fully alerted. Blaise explained the situation to Remus and they all ran to the command center. For his part, Theo couldn't believe what he was seeing. This place was like nothing he had ever seen in his life. Blaise saw the awed look on his friends face and said, "Welcome to the Scorpion Sorcerer's lair."

Theo replied, "This is got to be strangest revelation of my life."

Blaise said, "If you think this is a revelation, just wait until you find out who the Scorpion Sorcerer is. Come on, let's hurry." They made their way to the command center and Remus opened a set of oak doors. They were all looking at a 5X5 foot parchment that read Marauders map. Remus had managed to recreate the original Marauders map and made quite a few improvements to it with his newfound dark arts knowledge.

Remus tapped the map and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Suddenly the map came alive and showed everyone inside and outside the castle. The map now covered a good portion of the forbidden forest. The map showed Harry Potter fighting against twelve opponents.

Theo looked at Remus and said, "Shouldn't you go help him?"

Remus replied, "I assure you, it won't be necessary. However, we will monitor the situation." Remus cast another spell and called out, "Brianna Zabini". The map showed her exact location and they all saw that she was in one of the rooms adjacent to the potions lab. Malfoy and his goon squad were shown to be surrounding her.

Theo bellowed, "We have to get to her now, they are hurting her." Theo's eyes were now burning with fury. Blaise looked at Ginny who looked back at him and they both nodded. Blaise looked at Remus and asked him to find them a spot where they could portkey that was devoid of people. The map showed the potions class room to be empty.

Xiana was in near hysterics by now. Both her husband and her baby sister were being attacked. She took deep calming breaths. They needed clear heads right now, and not a panic frenzy. As much as she wanted to help her husband and sister, she could not afford to be seen or accidentally be cursed. She had a little one to think about. The danger was too great. Damn she hated feeling so helpless.

Blaise, Theo and Ginny portkeyed directly to the potions lab and made their way to the door. Blaise cast a silencing charms and they all shouted _Reducto _at the door. Just as they were entering, Malfoy and his goons were escaping through a hidden passageway. Damn it, Blaise thought Remus map never showed that passage. He probably didn't know that it even existed.

Upon seeing the bloody form of his girlfriend on the floor, Theo completely lost it and shouted _Avada- Kadavra. _Just as Theo was uttering his spell, Ginny let loose with one of her darkest spells, _Nebula-Exustio. _Theo's spell missed by a fraction, but her spell let loose an acid cloud that managed to connect with Goyle's left hand just as he was entering the passageway. Ginny heard a loud scream coming from the passageway. They all wanted to follow the bastards but they had to take care of Brianna first. The passageway managed to seal itself off anyway.

Theo dropped to his knees by Brianna and gently put her head on his knees. By then tears were streaming down his face. Blaise and Ginny had a look of pure fury on their faces. Ginny took out her new wand and began uttering a series of diagnostic spells. After what seemed like a couple of minutes she managed to say, "They did not rape her. Her virtue is intact. However, she has suffered a long time under the _Cruciatus _and she also received many cutting hexes. I have healed her deepest cuts, but we need to get her down in the lair stat."

_**October 15, 5:50 PM**_

They all portkeyed back to the lair where they were met by their tutors, by then all of the student population belonging to the Scorpion army was present. Neville, Tonks, and Luna had already set up the infirmary and Hinrich Schäfer their potions master was already bringing his new post _Cruciatus_ restorative potion. They gave Brianna a bunch of potions. Most of them were restorative potions of one sort or another.

Ten minutes later Brianna was looking much better on the outside, at that moment, Harry showed up in the lair. Everyone looked up to find Harry slightly dishevelled and he was cradling his ribs. What got their attention however was the neon green glow of his eyes and the bluish white magical aura surrounding him. They could all hear the air crackling around him. His body magic was on full blast. This meant that Harry Potter was pissed beyond reason, and a very pissed off Harry Potter was a very frightening scene to behold.

Theo Nott was not someone who feared many people, but looking at the man coming towards them, Theo nearly crapped his pants. The look on the man's face was terrifying. As the man came closer, Xiana ran to him and began crying on his shoulder. The man began pulling his magic in and Theo could now make out the man's feature. For the second time that day, Theo was left Speechless. Blaise saw the look on his friend's face. Blaise came over and said, "Theo, may I present the Scorpion Sorcerer, also known as Harry Potter."

At that point, Theo was just too stunned to say anything. The events of the day had caused his brain to shut down. Theo just nodded at Harry and made his way back to Brianna. She looked to be in a catatonic state. Harry made his way to Brianna and said, "She has buried herself in her mind. It is early enough that we may be able to bring her back. She hasn't had time to build her psychic walls. Who the fuck did this to her?"

Blaise answered, "Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle."

Harry looked back at Blaise and Theo and replied, "Time to permanently take out some death eaters." Both men nodded at him. Harry turned back to Brianna, and removed the illusion charm he had around Anubis. Once Anubis became visible, Theo let out a gasp, and Blaise put his hand on his arm and motioned for him to stay quiet.

Harry turned to Anubis and hissed, "Great one, I am going to need your help. I will need you to help search my friend. She had buried herself in her own mind. I need you to tell me when you feel emotions from her. I will also need you to protect my mind from her magic. She may try to fight me at first."

Anubis replied, "Do not worry master. I will guard your mind."

Harry took off his Basilisk cloak and he gently took his thumbs and opened Brianna's eyelids. He brought forth his Legillimency power to bear, and began a surface scan of her memories. He was looking for her consciousness. Her surface thoughts weren't even thoughts, they were just gray noise. This meant that she had retreated deep within her subconscious.

Thank God, Brianna was an accomplished Occlumens. The organization of her thoughts would make it much easier for him to scan for her presence. Harry immediately noticed that her magical channel from her magical core to her PONS was almost closed. This almost closed off channel is how the body protected itself from the brain. By shutting down the magical connection from the brain to the body it prevented further physical damage. Essentially it prevented her body from being further harmed by her own magic. Harry's first priority was to enlarge her magical channels back to what they were between her magical core and her PONS.

Harry decided that the best way, to do this was to let his mind act as her conscious mind, since she was buried deep in her own mind. This was essentially analogous to a back up disk for a computer. Essentially, Harry would bring back her conscious systems one by one. Once Harry had a direct link to her decision center, Harry implanted a command to reach her magical core and pushed her magic through the channels in order to enlarge them. This task took about thirty minutes to complete. The channels had already been created, the restriction gate artificially imposed on it, had to be dissolved in order to allow maximum power flow.

When Harry had finished the task, Brianna's brain and her magical core were again reunited. With no pain receptor commands emanating from the brain, her own magic began healing her stressed body and mind. Harry helped her with this by channelling some of his magical energy and slowly converting it to healing energy. Being able to cast spells wordlessly meant that he could modify his magic within his mind to attain a desired result.

Thirty more minutes passed, and Harry felt that her brain was healed. Now he had to find her and help her reconnect with her mind. Harry was beginning to feel very tired. He had sensed all of her folders but he still couldn't feel her presence. Harry knew he was missing something, and it was just at the edge of his consciousness. Her mind was organized like he had thought them. It was organized like a muggle computer hard drive. Harry had scanned all of her readable folders. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks. He had to search her hidden folders.

Harry probed her mind further. He willed the hidden folders to show themselves. He found three folders. Two of which were very personal and Harry had no intension of going there. At any rate, they didn't give off any powerful feelings. The third folder Harry noticed was emanating very strong feelings. This folder seemed to be dedicated to her memories of Theo and her. No wonder, she hid that folder. She was a Slytherin through and through. Slytherins were very private people. Her consciousness hiding in that folder made a lot of sense. In her mind, she was with Theo, and she felt that he would protect her.

Harry approached the folder and sent her all of the love he had for Xiana, the strong emotion of love would let her know that he had only good intentions towards her. He kept calling to her. He kept telling her that it was over and that the real Theo was waiting for her to come back. He told her that her brother and sister were very anxious to see her again. Slowly Harry was able to breach her hidden folder and met her on the conscious plane. She asked him what he was doing in her head. Harry gave her a full account of everything that had happened. He told her that he had helped her core magic reconnect with her mind and that she would be fully healed. She tensely felt his mind and knew that it was really Harry. Brianna relaxed and allowed Harry to guide her back from her subconscious mind and to reality.

Harry pulled out of her mind, and shortly after Brianna's eyes came into focus and smiled at the people surrounding her. She smiled at her boyfriend's tear streaked face. He gently took her hands and kissed them. Harry collapsed into a waiting chair feeling absolutely drained. Two hours had passed since he merged with her mind.

Xiana went up to him and kissed him with all the passion she could muster. Harry kissed her back. Remus came over and gave him a crushing hug. Everyone after that came over to pat Harry on the back. What he had done had never been done before. Harry had filed all of his memories of the event for later analysis. Understanding first hand the effects of the _Cruciatus _on the body and mind, gave Harry some knowledge on how to bring some of these victims back to consciousness.

Theo came over to Harry and said, "I want you to know that I am willing to pledge myself to your cause. Blaise explained everything to me. You are the third choice I have been looking for. Plus it's the least I can do for what you did for Brianna. If it weren't for you, she would be lost to us. She means more to me than anything else in the world. When you are rested I want to make my pledge of loyalty to you."

Harry shook his hand and said, "Welcome to the family." With that, Xiana led him to one of the infirmary beds. She gave him a slew of restorative potions and made sure to heal his ribs. They weren't broken, only hairline fracture, which was easy enough to repair. He would be bruised to a couple of days. She kissed him and Harry fell into a deep sleep.

_**October 15, 8:30 pm Romania in the Carpathian Mountains at the Moldoveanu Dragon Preserve.**_

Charlie was coming out of the trainer barracks. He had just finished an intense session of love making with his girlfriend of four years. Michelle and he had been seeing each other for a very long time. Charlie needed to make one last round of the pens before calling it a night. He gingerly made his way to the Hungarian Horntail pens. Nina, one of the oldest female Dragons, had been feeling out of sorts. Charlie had been giving her lots of _Daka_, and _Chamira _mushrooms in her diet. She seemed to be getting better slowly.

Charlie noticed that everything was quiet all of a sudden. Charlie stopped to listen more carefully but he still couldn't spot any sound. This caused Charlie to become nervous all of a sudden. He took out his wand and began moving slowly toward the pens. Charlie was now close enough to the pens that he could make out the food silos.

Just by the North end of the food silo, Charlie spotted a black cloak. Oh, oh he thought, this couldn't be good. Charlie crept slowly forward and cast a disillusion charm on him self. Unknown to Charlie, Bellatrix Lestrange, Severus Snape and nine other death eaters were waiting for him. He had taken the bait as she had predicted. The fool was boxed in and she immediately gave the signal to attack. She along with three other death eaters lunched finite_-incantatum_ from behind his flank.

Charlie immediately felt three spells hit him in the back. He then felt his disillusion charm disintegrate. He immediately threw himself on the ground and saw a bunch of _Avada- Kedavra_ spells fly overhead. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought. Based on the number of lights he saw there must be well over ten death eaters here.

Charlie crawled over to the nearest water trough. While doing this, he was hit by several cutting hexes. His leg was bleeding, but there was nothing he could do at the moment. He immediately configured some stonewalls and called his brother Bill to bring some backup. When he was done his call, he quickly coordinated some targets and lunched a series of dark curses. He cast _Stannum-Ancile/ Stannum-Ancile/Reducto-Maximus/ Nebula-Exustio _/_ Retroago-Figere-Scipio._

Charlie was very happy to hear screams of pain coming from the death eaters. Unknown to Charlie, he had just killed five of the death eaters. One death eater had his head blown apart, and dark poisoned lances had skewered two more death eaters. The other two had their lungs burned by an acid cloud. They had been completely disfigured. Bellatrix couldn't believe the amount of dark magic the Weasley boy was throwing around. She didn't waste a whole lot of time thinking about it. She gave the signal for the remaining death eaters to throw the _R__educto _curse. Just as the _Reducto_ curse was launched, she and Snape cast the _Avada-Kedavra_.

Charlie's elation was quickly replaced with dread. He tried apparating but was unable to do it. There must be anti-apparition ward up he thought. No one would ever know why Charlie never tried using his portkey ring. The _Reductor _curses slammed into his transfigured walls and they were blasted to bits. Charlie never saw the green light coming from behind him. The last thing he felt was a green glow enveloping him and he knew no more. Charlie died that night with his cherished Dragons.

The Dragon's seemed to realize what had happened and started getting angry. Nina, the oldest Horntail at the preserve, saw one of her caretaker go down, and roared with anger. The Dragon turned around towards the feed Silo to find one of the puny black cloaks hiding there, Nina reared up and sent a massive wall of fire at the annoying insect. The death eater died on the spot. Bellatrix saw the Dragons getting agitated. She had no intention of taking on any enraged Dragons. She took down the wards, and told her crew to apparate to their next target. Bellatrix took her wand, pointed it high in the air, and cried _Mosmodre._

Meanwhile back at his apartment, Bill and Fleur were cuddling on the couch and watching muggle television. Now, Bill understood his father's obsession with all things muggle. The things they created with their science were truly remarkable. Just as Bill was reaching for another Butter beer, his cell phone rang. He picked it up and found a very nervous Charlie talking at the other end. Suddenly Bill jumped to his feet and said, "We'll be there very soon, just hold on."

Fleur said, "What is going on?"

With a worried, look on his face, Bill said, "Charlie is being attacked, at his Dragon preserve by death eaters."Fleur's hands immediately went to her mouth and said, "Quickly call Remus, we will need backup."

Meanwhile Remus was looking at the Marauder's map on the wall tracing the footsteps of the headmaster when his cell phone rang. He picked it up and found Bill at the other end. Remus face suddenly hardened and he quickly went to get Harry.

Harry was sleeping soundly when he felt himself being shaken up. Remus said, "Harry wake up! Death eaters in Romania are attacking Charlie." Harry immediately jumped to his feet, although a bit shaky and bellowed, "Neville, Luna, Blaise, Ginny, Akima, Michael, Remus, and Yadislav suit up with full battle gear." Within five minutes, they were all standing in front of Harry. Harry took out two rings, which he enlarged, and cast a portkey charm on them. Harry then said, "Everyone, grab on to the rings. Three, two, one," They were off.

They ended up at Charlie's barrack where they met Fred, George and Lee. Harry took out his wand and said, "Point Charlie." The wand pointed to Charlie's position. They carefully made their way to his position until they found Bill waiving at them. As they approached Bill, they saw Fleur sitting by a body on the ground. Ginny let out a wail and ran to Fleur followed by the twins and Lee Jordan.

Harry felt his eyes water but ruthlessly suppressed his emotions for the time being. Remus' shoulder sagged as he wept. The rest of group looked very sombre. Blaise left the group to be with Ginny. Harry approached Bill and said, "Have you had a chance to determine what happened."

Bill replied, "Charlie fell to the killing curse. I have already walked the perimeter and found the bodies of six death eaters. At least he took six of the mother fuckers with him." Bill had tears streaking down his cheeks. Harry hugged Bill as he sobbed on Harry's shoulder. Harry said, "I swear Bill, we will have our revenge." Harry let Bill collect himself and squeezed his shoulders.

Harry then made his way to Charlie and bent down to hold his hand. Harry kept thinking of the good times he had with Charlie. Harry muttered, "You will never be forgotten my friend." By then his girlfriend Michelle showed up and screamed when she saw her boyfriend's dead body. What a horrible day this had been Harry thought. Harry gave Charlie's girlfriend an address so that she would know how to reach them. He told her that they would let her know when the funeral was going to take place.

There was nothing else they could do and so Bill cast a stasis charm on his brother's body, and they all portkeyed back to the Scorpion lair. Once they reached the lair, Harry went and transfigured a rough block of granite into a beautiful stone coffin with Dragon carvings all over the box. Xiana stood some distance away. She knew that Harry needed to do this. She didn't want to pressure him to talk. He would pour out his feelings to her when he was ready. She simply admired his work. The coffin was truly a work of art. The top of the coffin box had a beautiful Hungarian Horntail Dragon on it. Harry took two small emeralds and fixed them where the dragon eyes were supposed to be.

Bill came over and thanked Harry for his help. Harry replied, "Charlie was also my brother. You are all my family in one fashion or another." Harry then gathered everyone around the coffin and said, "Tonight, we lost someone very dear to our heart. The first time I met Charlie I met someone who was truly at peace with himself. Charlie taught me how to live one day at a time. Charlie was larger than life. I will truly miss my brother." Harry stifled a sob at the end with tears running down his face.

Everyone else followed Harry's lead and spoke about what Charlie meant to them. They spoke of their love, their pranks, and their time together. It would take some time, but this ritual seemed to help everyone with his or her grief. Knowing that other people shared and understood your pain, made bearing it that much easier.

Harry went to Xiana, buried his face in her shoulder, and hugged her. He let out the silent tears that he couldn't show anyone else. Seeing him bear the weight of all these responsibilities broke her heart. Why did her husband have to play such a critical role in this damn war? She of course knew the answer to that question. There was simply no one else that could do what Harry could. Leaders aren't made they are born.

They all decided to stay at the Scorpion lair. It was already 11:30 PM, and they were bushed. Harry and Xiana lay on a double bed and went to sleep in their combat gear. As Harry laid his head on the pillow, he swore he would get even. With that thought in mind, Harry decided to pay Voldemort a little visit.

Harry checked the integrity of his link and seeing that nothing had been altered, he proceeded to gently connect to Voldemort. Harry made sure to bring his Occlumency shield to full strength. Harry mind linked to Anubis and told them his plans. His familiar became very alert and proceeded to reinforce his shields. Harry quickly connected to the beast and made sure to stay on his surface memories.

The scene that greeted Harry was pure disgust. Voldemort was leaving a muggle home. The home itself had the mutilated bodies of four muggles, two adults, and two children. The bloody maniac was strolling down the road as if it were a bloody Sunday walk at the park. Harry was trying to figure out where he was. Voldemort was passing by an overpass and happened to look at the sign. Harry read Liverpool. Not far from the house he came from he entered another house where two families were tied up.

Voldemort said, " Ah, Lucius I see you are about to initiate my new recruits. Make sure they understand the pleasure of being one of my death eaters."

Lucius bowed low to his Lord and replied, "They will know that the true pleasure is in serving you my Lord." Voldemort cackled and answered back, "That is as it should be Lucius. I will be returning back to headquarters very shortly to monitor the success of our raids. Do not fail me Lucius." Voldemort looked around and Harry could see Draco, Crabbe and Goyle along with Narcissa.

Thus began a disgusting display of inhumane acts. Draco was laughing with glee as he was raping and torturing a twelve-year-old girl. Meanwhile Crabbe and Goyle were having a go torturing and raping a fourteen-year-old girl. Narcissa Malfoy ended up castrating a nine-year-old muggle boy. The parents were screaming and crying. Lucius cast an _Imperio_ on a mother and had her sodomize her son. Voldemort left shortly after the fun began and Harry woke up. It was time for some payback. Harry carefully dropped the link to Voldemort and made sure to put back his mental shields in place. Just by looking at the magical aura of the tunnel link Harry knew that he was in full control.

Harry went to grab Neville, Blaise, and Theo. He told them about Lucius and his merry band of assholes. He told them about Draco, Crabbe and Goyle being present. Harry could see cold revenge in their eyes. They all dressed in full battle gear and Harry created a portkey. They took the portkey and were immediately transported to the little overpass that Harry saw in his link. Harry immediately took out two crystals the size of baseballs. He activated his anti-apparition and anti-portkey ward generators.

Harry told them to cast a disillusion charm on themselves and assigned specific target to all of them. They carefully made their way to the house, and found the door slightly ajar. Harry cast a silencing charm on their feet and proceeded to locate the source of the noise. It seemed that all the fun was happening in the kitchen. Harry made sure that his hood was on and had his troops form on each side of him. When they were close enough, they cast the _stupefy_ spell just as Draco was finishing his victim off with an _Avada-Kadavra. _

Instantly Lucius, Narcissa, Draco and one more adult death eater fell to the ground. Crabbe, Goyle, and two more adult death eaters turned around and cast _Avada-Kadavra_ in their vicinity. However, Harry and his group had dropped to one knee expecting the comeback. The return spells all flew high and Harry counter attacked with some dark arts.

Harry hissed _Bi-Iz-Neturu _and watched as a green light surrounded by a black sheath hit the death eater. An unholy scream came from the adult death eater. The man was literally melting away. The skin first melted away like hot wax, and the muscle fibres liquefied into a yellowish protoplasmic soup. The brains melted away into a black liquid and the bones burst into flame and combusted to ash.

Crabbe and Goyle threw up and dropped their wands. Theo and Blaise stunned them and right after that they in turn threw up. Neville managed to stun the last adult death eater. When the death eaters were all incapacitated, Harry and Neville banished all of their portkeys except for one, which Harry kept. They also banished their knives, and destroyed all of their wands. Theo and Blaise could see the fire in Harry's eyes and knew that this was going to get real ugly. Harry told them to put their hoods up. Harry and Neville took their time and immobilized the remaining death eater with metallic ropes.

Harry enervated the remaining death eaters and cast a silencing charm on all but Lucius. Lucius found himself waking up thinking to find Order of the Phoenix members above him, but the reality of the situation soon changed for all of them. The one person whom they feared stood before them. Lucius had seen images of what this man could do and he was not to be trifled with. Lucius decided to adopt a voice of authority in the hope that this man respected a true pureblood wizard.

Lucius finally said, "I demand that you release me this instant. If you do, my lord may decide to spare you." All Lucius heard was the most chilling laugh that he had ever heard. This one sounded even colder than his lord and that was saying something.

The man standing before him replied with such venom that Lucius felt his blood freeze when he said, "You disgusting piece of shit, you are in no position to demand anything, and I am in a position to grant you nothing."

Lucius sneered and replied, "I want you to tell me right now what you want from us?" Lucius was suddenly hit in the face with such ferocity that his nose instantly broke, and his right cheekbone fractured under the impact. Blood was flowing freely down his chin and unto his shirt.

The hooded man with the glowing green orbs answered back, "You fucking piece of shit, you will not talk to me unless I have given you permission. I rule here, you would do well to remember that. Make sure that your whore of a wife understands that concept also."

Harry took out a large black rope, which was encrusted with small bits of black diamond gems and concentrated on it and cast _Portus_. He then gave the rope to Neville and told him to wrap all the Malfoys along with Crabbe and Goyle.

Harry then started hissing to the shock of all the death eaters and said, "Great one, how would you like some entertainment tonight like I promised you?"

Anubis became very alert and replied, "Do you mean it master? Do I get to bite tonight?"

Harry chuckled and answered, "Yes great one, you get to feed on magical energy tonight."

In truth Anubis received all the magical nourishment he needed from Harry. However, biting a victim was like having a triple layered chocolate cake to him. Harry removed the disillusion spell and told Anubis to go and bite the two adult death eaters sitting on the far wall. Anubis slithered away until he met his first victim and quickly sunk his fangs into the man's leg. He then proceeded to bite the other fat death eater. Within seconds, the men began to shake violently and scream as if their vocal cords would rip from their throats. Harry knew what was going to happen, but he found the experience to be fascinating anyway.

The men's eyes suddenly went white and their skin turned gray and parched as if they were mummified. Suddenly all of their tissue loss their moisture and the men shrivelled up like dried prunes and became silent. Harry started hissing again and said, "Ah, great one, did you enjoy that?"

Anubis replied," That was fantastic master. They were quite tasty."

Harry lowered himself and let Anubis crawl up inside his shirt and let him settle his head by his favorite position, which was by his left shoulder. Harry then went to the dead muggle family and cleaned them up with one wave of his wand. He then bent down by the little girl and Harry muttered softly, "Rest in peace little one. I'll make sure to avenge your death and the death of your innocent family." He bent down and kissed her forehead.

When Lucius saw the Scorpion Sorcerer kiss the child, he knew that he and his family were in deep shit. His only hope was for his master to come back and check on him, but very little time had passed from the time his Lord left to now. The big question in his mind was where was he taking him and what was he going to do with them.

Harry walked back to the group and saw that all the Malfoy's, Crabbe and Goyle junior were all tied with his special rope. Harry took out his wand and while tapping the rope said, "Vengeance." They all disappeared instantly. Harry walked back with his troops outside and collected his ward generators. He deactivated them, and put them in his pocket. Harry then told his troops to portkey back to the Scorpion lair. He told them he was going to make their prisoners comfy. Harry took the time to cast _Ahak-Nakeb. _A giant Scorpion appeared in the sky. When Harry was done they all were portkeyed away to their destination.

Harry arrived at his home at Potter castle. He immediately went down to his dungeons. Harry had put a lot of work to make his dungeons gothic and medieval. After all appearance was everything. The rooms were filled with Stalactites, hanging from the roof. Harry had cast a freezing charm in all of the dungeon cells. Cold temperatures naturally weakened people he had read. Harry had also studied muggle torture methods throughout the ages and had come up with many interesting ideas. There were chains with hooks suspended from the ceiling and also there were normal chains and shackles attached to the wall. Harry made sure to use rhenium for all of his metal work, it was the most resistant to stress fatigue and corrosion.

Harry had put an ancient magical iron-smelting oven in the middle of each dungeon cell. The blue magical fire, which powered it, was extremely hot. The heat however remained contained in the fire itself. Therefore, next to no heat was released in the surrounding area. Harry had also transfigured a full set of branding irons.

Harry had also transfigured and conjured spiked chairs, pincers, presses, a long Vietnamese needle set, and an acid bath to name a few. Harry had truly let his imagination run wild. Every time he thought about his parents or his godfather's deaths at the hands of the death eaters he found another creative way to torture them. Harry wanted this time alone with them, because he knew that Xiana would not approve of him torturing them for any major length of time.

Harry had no shadow of a doubt that he could torture creatures such as them. Harry now firmly believed that people who committed the acts of atrocity that he had witnessed tonight could not be considered part of the human race. Harry entered the right dungeon and saw that his prisoners were lying on their side on the floor shivering. Harry made sure to separate Crabbe and Goyle from the Malfoys. That way they would gain no moral strength from them. Harry stunned them both and levitated them to the dungeon adjacent to the Malfoy's suite.

Once Crabbe and Goyle were secured in chains and shackles, Harry removed all of their clothing except for their boxers. They slumped to the cold ground and Harry locked the doors. Harry then went back to the Malfoy's and stunned Lucius first. He then levitated Lucius to a granite chair, which had long and wide armrests. The armrest itself had restraining straps for immobilizing the arms and hands. Harry completely immobilized Lucius' arms, hands, and legs.

Harry then turned his attention to Draco. He incarcerated his legs and arms. Harry then levitated him up in the air and cast numbing charms on his back and chest. He then animated the hooked chains and had them violently attack Draco. Two of the hooks imbedded themselves deeply on his breast muscles and two more hooks imbedded themselves just under the shoulder blade. Harry then caused the chains to become as tight as possible. The chains were pulling on the muscles at a 45-degree angle. Harry then released the levitation charm and enervated Draco. The screams coming out of ferret boy were inhumane to say the least.

While Draco was busy ripping his vocal cords out, Harry turned his attention to the bitch that had castrated an innocent little boy. Harry could see her mouth move but no sound was coming from her. Then Harry remembered that he had cast a _Silencio_ spell on her. He removed the spell and could hear her screams and plea of mercy. Harry dripping with venom said, "You mean show you mercy like you did to that innocent little boy tonight? I think not whore." Harry then stunned her and levitated her to the wall. He tightly shackled her to the wall and removed all of her clothes but left her knickers on.

Harry brought out another one of his little creations. It was a dark quartz crystal, which had a large sapphire gem at its center. Harry had managed to replicate his Dementor magical signature into the gem. The quartz ball was charged with raw magical energy and a thin rod of Naquadria connected the sapphire to a diamond cone, which acted as a focusing lens. There was a nub which was made of crystal clear quartz which was connected to the sapphire and was set at 90-degrees from the focusing lens shaft.

This nub contained the activation and deactivation charm. There was another larger nub which was set 180-degrees from the focusing lens and that nub was connected to the large dark quartz ball. The quartz fed raw magical energy to the sapphire, which converted that energy into a Dementor's magical aura. The Naquadria shaft amplified the Dementor aura and focused it on a person. The results should be the same as having a Dementor nearby. The quartz ball was good for about three hours. Of course all of this was theoretical, but it was worth trying.

Harry set the ball on a stool facing her. The stool was set far enough that she couldn't knock it off. He activated the ball and watched her reaction. She immediately crumpled to the floor and screamed. Well he thought, so far so good.

Harry walked back to Lucius and enervated him. The first thing that Lucius noticed was the intense cold that he was feeling. Lucius then recognized the hoarse screams of his son and looked up to see him hanging off meat hooks. He then tuned his attention to his wife's screams and noticed that she was almost naked and left shivering on the cold floor. Lucius couldn't believe how bad things had turned out on what was supposed to be a magnificent night for death eaters.

Lucius then looked at the most menacing green orbs that he had ever seen. Lucius still couldn't make out the man's face, but the eyes were a sight to behold. There was immense power there, power to maybe even rival his Lord. All Lucius could think to say at the moment was, "Why is it so damn cold in here." Lucius was shivering.

The voice that answered back was as cold as the cell itself. Harry said, "What's wrong Malfoy, haven't' you ever heard of the term "when hell freezes over"? Well, welcome to hell." Harry decided that Draco should see his dear papa. After all, a family that suffers together is a family that stays together. Harry took his wand and allowed the overhead chains to bring Draco down so that his feet could support his weight. Blood had flowed from the hooks down to his knees. It was quite a sight to behold. Harry wanted to keep him alive long enough for Theo and Brianna to get a piece of him.

Draco couldn't believe the pain he was in. He had never experienced such pain. By now, the numbing charms had worn off and the burning on his back and chest was excruciating. The damn cold was sapping his strength. His father looked to be o.k. though except for the shivering. Draco would give anything to know who that fucking Scorpion bastard was.

As if reading his mind, Harry said, "I am sure by now, you are all wondering who the Scorpion Sorcerer is? Well I think it's only fair for you to know who your eventual executioner is, don't you think?" Harry lowered his hood and heard the gasp coming from Draco and Lucius and they both managed to say, "Potter?" at the same time. Harry gave them his most evil smirk and replied, "Vengeance is best served as a cold dish, don't you think? I told you little Draco pooh, that your end was coming. Now you see the truth of it. Don't you worry blondie, you and I are going to have lots of fun before this is over. You will regret ever fucking with me, Malfoy."

Lucius always knew that the Potter heir was a powerful wizard. But, this went beyond anything he ever imagined for the brat. How he had become so knowledgeable in the dark arts was beyond anything Lucius could come up with. Lucius was beginning to realize that making an enemy of the Potter heir may have been a grievous mistake. Finally Lucius found his voice and with a sneer said, "Look Potter, I get the point. You have had your little fun now you can stop your torture session and let us go. I promise to let the ministry go easy on you."

Harry laughed, like a man possessed. When he was able to regain enough control he brought his full magical aura to bear, and said, "My dear Lucius, I have not yet begun torturing you. I don't consider people like you human you see. Anyone who can kill innocent babies and enjoys it deserves torture beyond imagination. When I am through with you Lucius, your suffering will be legendary even in hell. You will pay for every innocent whose life you took. I have become the law, the judge and the executioner. You Lucius Malfoy have been sentenced to death by torture due to your crimes against Humanity. I Harry James Potter will be your executioner."

With that Harry walked to his implements cabinet and picket up a set of very fine titanium needles. He came back and sat in front of Lucius who spit in his face. Lucius sneered and said, "You may kill me but the Dark Lord will see that you are exterminated Potter."

Harry gave him a vicious smile and picked up a six-inch needle. He carefully looked at it from all sides and said, "You know what the problem is with you Malfoy. It's privilege. You think because you are a wizard and you have money you can shit on anyone. You see, this is why I don't plan on torturing you the wizarding way quite yet. I feel you need to learn a lot more about muggles. I sense you don't respect them enough. I intend on showing you the error of your ways. I will show you that muggles aren't as stupid as you seem to think, inbred. Are you by any chance familiar with Asian torturing methods? Probably not I would wager. Now let me see how does that go? Oh yes! Now I remember."

Harry took the needle and placed it underneath his right hands middle fingernail. Harry slowly pushed and heard a popping noise. He could see the head of the needle underneath the nail, pushing against the soft tissue. Harry thought that Malfoy's voice box was going to explode. His screams could wake the dead Harry thought. Harry then took another needle and stuck it underneath his pinkie fingernail. Harry repeated this procedure until all of the fingers on Lucius hand were bloodied and needles were sticking out underneath every nail.

Harry looked down at his feet and noticed that even his little aristocratic feet and toes were properly manicured. Well, Harry thought, that just wouldn't do. Harry went back to his implement cabinet, and picked up a muggle hammer.

Harry looked at Lucius with a malicious sneer, and said "Now I don't know if you enjoyed my special needles as much as I did. I remember telling you that muggles were pretty good at some things. Torture is definitely one of them. Now, here is some more education about muggles. You see this implement here? Well this happens to be called a hammer. Now muggles can do incredible things with these instruments. Unfortunately for me I failed wood shop. However, I think I have come up with a way to redeem myself. "

Harry suddenly took the hammer and slammed it on his right foot's little toe with a sickening crack. The toe was smashed to a pulp. The tip of the small toe bone split and separated from the rest of the toe. Bits of crushed flesh were left hanging on the split bone with blood spilling everywhere.

Harry then took his hand to his ear to hear the inhumane screams coming from Lucius. By then, Lucius was crying and whimpering for him to stop. Harry sneered and said, "Oh, you mean you want me to show you mercy like you showed that little muggle girl is that it? Well I could do that. However, I am enjoying torturing your pureblood inbred ass way too fucking much!"

Harry took the hammer and swung it and smashed the big toe on his left foot. The sound that came out of that one, actually made him queasy for a second. Draco simply vomited on himself. Not a very strong constitution that one Harry thought.

Harry ended up smashing three more toes until Lucius passed out from the pain. Harry cast a cauterizing spell at his ruined toes. It's not like he was going to use them again, Harry thought. After about thirty minutes, Harry cast the enervate spell on him. Lucius woke up sick to his stomach. His voice box felt like it had exploded.

Harry said, "Well Lucius I have decided to give you a breather. But I think your wife and son need a real bonding moment. Now as I understand it, you inbreds love the purity of your blood. Because you like it so pure and according to you there is no greater honor then breeding with another pureblood. I can only imagine that you love fucking your cousins, sisters, brothers or whatever combination feels good to you since there are so few purebloods left anyway. Well let's see if we can take this ideal a step further." Harry whirled around and cast _imperio_ at Draco with all of his power. He didn't want the little shit fighting his command.

Harry walked to Narcissa and cancelled the Dementor crystal and put it in his pocket. He then stunned her and moved her to the table propped up against the Eastern wall. Harry bent her over the table and put a sticking charm on her so she couldn't move. He then removed the hooks from Draco's body and cancelled the restraining metal ropes on his legs and hands. He told Draco to stay where he was.

Harry walked over to him and whispered in his ear while pointing at his mother. Draco was fighting with all his might to not listen to Potter, but he simply couldn't fight him. He felt so much better staying in his blissful world. There was no worry in this world. Just obey Potter and feel happy. Draco walked over to his mother and raped and sodomized her. This was going on while Lucius was conscious, watching and screaming.

Harry looked at Lucius and sneered, "Tell me Malfoy how does it feel, when it's your own family who is being abused and tortured? I don't know about you, but I call it poetic justice. After all even the muggle good book says eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth." When Draco was spent, he told him to go sit in the corner. Harry then cancelled the sticking charm on Narcissa, and cast the _Imperio_ curse on her and told her to go wait in the opposite corner.

He then told Draco to go lay on the table. Draco obeyed and Harry conjured leather straps and tied his feet and hands to the table. Harry then walked to Narcissa and whispered commands in her ears. She immediately obeyed and walked to a cabinet filled with all types of knives. She picked a blade that had a snake wrapped around the handle and walked to Draco. She cut his loincloth away and proceeded to castrate him. Draco screamed, cried and vomited on himself.

Blood was flowing everywhere and Harry cast another cauterizing spell where his privates used to be. Harry then went to a cabinet and gave them all a blood, energy and nutrient Potions. Harry banished Draco's bits into a jar and filled it with formaldehyde. Formaldehyde was a muggle preserving liquid. Harry then conjured underwear for both Draco and Narcissa. He brought them back to their original position.

Draco was once again hoisted on the meat hooks and chains, and Narcissa was chained to the wall. Harry decided to give her a top to cover her tatas. It wouldn't do well for Xiana to find out that Harry had Narcissa naked. Just for spite Harry took Draco's bits in the jar and placed the jar three feet away from his face. Harry thought, let him stew on his crimes against that innocent muggle girl Harry thought.

Harry walked back towards Lucius and said, "I hope you enjoyed the show. After all you seemed to enjoy doing it to innocent muggles. I thought that you wouldn't mind seeing your own family going at it." Harry looked at his watch and noticed that it was nearly 5:00 a.m. The next thing Harry wanted to do was destroy Malfoy manor. Before that happened however, Harry wanted to secure any valuables from Malfoy manor that could help in the war against Voldemort.

Harry was convinced that a family as old as the Malfoy's must have a very extensive collection of magical books both light and dark. Before destroying Malfoy manor, Harry needed to do his homework and find out all the pitfalls contained in Malfoy manor. In order to do this Harry needed to rape Malfoy's mind and clean him of all his knowledge. Harry remembered his motto. Show no mercy.

Harry walked to Malfoy and grabbed his head with his hands and kept both of his eyelids opened with his thumbs and brought forth all of his mental power to bear and went into Malfoy's mind. Harry encountered very powerful mind shields and Harry funnelled his core magic directly to his PONS and then through his eyes and began filling Malfoy's head with pure magic. Under the power of Harry's attack, Malfoy's shields began to crumble.

A few minutes later Harry was savagely raping Malfoy's mind for all it was worth. Harry saw many of Voldemort's rituals and saw something about Horcruxes that seemed very important regarding Voldemort's supposed immortality. Harry made a mental note to investigate that particular subject later on.

Harry dived further into Malfoy's mind and began siphoning all of the important knowledge about Malfoy manor. When his was done, Harry left a ball of his own magical energy inside Malfoy's head. The bastard was going to feel a lot of pain in his head from now on. Looking at the memories, Harry felt all of his restraint concerning that family gone. They were plain evil and deserved everything he could throw at them. Harry needed to get his troops together to raid Malfoy manor.

Harry looked at Lucius and said, "I'll be leaving for now but don't you worry, I'll be coming back real soon. Harry removed the imperious curse from Draco and his mother and heard them crying and whimpering. Narcissa was in near hysterics. Draco seemed to be in a near catatonic state. Harry exited the dungeons and made sure to cast all of the dark wards he knew. No, one was getting in or getting out without his permission.

Harry apparated to the Scorpion Lair to prepare for the destruction of Malfoy manor.


	15. Chapter 14 Destruction and Alliance

**Chapter 14 "Destruction and Alliance"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry apparated back to the Scorpion lair and made his way to the command center. He noticed that Blaise, Ginny, and Bill were up sipping on some coffee and talking. Blaise was the first one to notice Harry come in with a determined look on his face. Blaise had come to know that look and it seemed that more action was coming.

Bill looked at Harry and noticed how tired he seemed to be. Bill himself had been up most of the night thinking about Charlie. When he looked at Harry he said, "What's up mate?"

Harry looked at each of his companions one by one and finally asked Blaise, "Have you had a chance to brief them on our little escapade last night?"

Blaise replied, "I have told them everything up to where we split up after the portkey."

Harry nodded and said, "I have just come back from Potter castle making sure that our guest were made comfortable." He said that last bit with a malicious sneer. The other's looked at each other knowing full well what he meant.

Harry continued and said, "During my interrogation, I have come across some very interesting information that I think you should be aware of. I will need Theo, Neville, Brianna and Ginny to see this as well. I ended up making a significant memory withdrawal from one Malfoy Sr. I think you will find the information very interesting." Harry stood up to get the pensieve while Blaise went to wake up his comrades.

While Harry was engaged in putting his memories into his pensieve, Blaise was busy waking his fellow accomplice. After a short while, they all walked back together to the command center. When they were all present Harry said, "Now, that everyone is present, I need you to take a look at the memories that I have extracted from Malfoy Sr. When we are done, we will plan a major counter offensive. Bill if you don't mind, could you please call everyone in, I need to prepare our battle plan. Meet me at the projector."

Harry picked up his pensieve and headed to the projector area at the center of the main lair. He sat the pensieve down and booted up his computer. He then waited for everyone else to show up. When everyone was present Harry said, "Alright, I want you all to enter the pensieve and see the following memories. When you are done, we will go over our attack plans. I have a few surprises to show you. We will discuss the plan when you are finished viewing. "They all nodded at Harry as they put a finger around the rim of the pensieve. Harry then took out his wand and cast _Memori-Exmume._ Everyone found themselves floating down a narrow well until they found themselves in a room, and suddenly images started to flash by. They were all mesmerized by the images appearing before their eyes.

Blaise found himself looking at a meeting with the Dark Lord. He saw all of the death eaters planning their next attack. The one image that stood out was that of Snape suggesting to the Dark Lord whom the target should be from the Order of the Phoenix. Blaise looked at Ginny and Bill and saw hate the likes of which would make any Slytherin proud. The next scene showed memories of Malfoy and the Dark Lord discussing something called Horcruxes? They were able to see Malfoy Manor library along with the complete layout of the place. Due to Malfoy's close relationship with Crabbe and Goyle senior, they were all able to get a good feel on how those dwellings were laid out.

Bill had already committed the layout of the manors to memory. He was not paying attention to the last memories though. The thing that was on his mind right now was how to best take care of Snape. For far to long, that bastard had managed to skip justice. He was responsible for planning and executing Charlie's death. For that Bill would make sure that the slimy fucker would beg for mercy when he was done with him.

With this new information, Bill had no doubt that Ginny would want to race down to the potions classroom and confront the man as soon as possible. One of the many things Bill shared with Harry was patience. These days, Harry never rushed off into any situation without carefully considering all of the variables and planned accordingly. Bill had no intention to run off at the mouth. Snape was as good as dead in his eyes, the only thing to determine was the when and how. Bill felt some one touch his elbow and was brought out of his thoughts by Theo. Bill looked into his eyes and nodded.

While his troops were looking at his memories, Harry went to one of the obsidian boxes sitting on one of the labs and picked up six of his explosive devices. Nothing like a field test to see how new weaponry works. Harry walked back to the conference table and noticed that his troops had finished viewing his memories. Harry put his new invention on the conference table for all to see. Bill was the first one to regain his wits when he came out of the pensieve.

Bill found himself regaining his conscious sense and noticed Harry putting some kind of contraption on the table. The first thing that came out of his mouth was, "Harry, Snape is mine. The fucker is going to wish he never messed with a Weasley. I will be formulating the plan for his capture. Can I make use of Potter holding facilities?"

Harry looked at Bill and saw the fire and hatred in his eyes and knew all too well the hunger of vengeance and replied, "No problem Bill. Just let me know what you want. Snape is yours, just promise me that he is going to suffer for all the grief that bastard has caused?"

Bill answered back, "That scum is going to whish for death when we are through with him!" One thing that Harry knew for sure was that Bill's conviction on the matter was absolute. Harry looked around the table and found that even though Bill's anger was quiet and simmering at the surface, Ginny's was terrifying to witness. Harry saw her stand up in one quick motion with her chair flying backward. She took out her wand and bellowed, "I want Snape right fucking now! I want that sneering bastard castrated." She said the last bit with such venom that all the guys at the table gulped.

Ginny was about to portkey to the potions lab to confront Snape, when Bill yelled, "Ginny! Sit down right now. We are not going to rush this, do you hear me?"

Ginny turned back to her brother and with a sneer replied, "Why Not? The longer we wait, the more likely he is going to escape our clutches. I say we go down there right now and bring him in. Damn it, the bastard is a pro at escaping, and if we don't take action right now, we will loose our chance."

Bill suddenly realized that his baby sister had felt Charlie's death much harder that he imagined. Bill realized that due to her grief she was not thinking rationally. Bill looked at Blaise, and he inclined his head slightly indicating that he understood his intent.

Blaise looked at Ginny and knew she was hurting real bad. Blaise only had to go back 24 hours to remember how he felt when his twin sister had been attacked and knew what she was feeling. Blaise knew he had to calm her down, and make her think rationally. The passion that he so loved from her was also a beast to tame at times. Blaise wouldn't have it any other way though. In Ginny, Blaise had found his soul mate. During all the flux time they had shared, they had gotten to know each other very well. He loved her with all his heart. He pulled at her elbow and she looked into his deep blue eyes and knew that he wanted to talk to her in private. Ginny looked around the table and let Blaise take her to the North East corner of the command center to talk. Harry noticed this and nodded at Blaise to carry on.

Meanwhile Blaise said, "Ginny, believe me, I know how you are feeling, and Snape is going to pay. However, if we rush in there without a plan we are royally going to screw things up. Remember what Harry said? Planning is everything. When the time comes, I swear to you that Snape is as good as Dragon meat. You have to believe me." Blaise was looking deeply into Ginny's eyes willing her to believe him.

Ginny meanwhile was taking every word her boyfriend was telling her and absorbing them. She was fighting really hard with her Gryffindor side. In the end she knew what Blaise said was the sensible thing to do. She knew she had to use her head and not her heart. With tears in her eyes and anguished sobs she looked at her boyfriend and nodded her head. She ran into Blaise and buried her head into his chest.

Blaise let out a slow breath he didn't even know he was holding. He wrapped his girlfriend in his arms and held her tightly while she calmed down. He narrowed his eyes and deep down he sneered as he was thinking of Snape and the pain he had caused Ginny. When the time came, batboy, as Harry called him, would feel his wrath that much he promised himself. Like Neville kept saying, this year would see a lot of people get their just rewards. Blaise guided Ginny back to the group.

Harry waited for everyone to be sitting at the conference table and said, Well, now that you know what our next objective is, I want you to be acquainted with a little invention of mine. "

Neville picked up one of the strange balls and wondered what the hell he was looking at. He looked around and found everyone else wondering the same thing. Neville shrugged his shoulders and waited for Harry to explain his contraption as he finished drawing the different Manor layout and any pertaining information to each.

Harry was busy drawing three different top views of Malfoy Manor and a layout of the dungeons. When he was done, Harry explained what his new invention was and how it worked. He told them how to activate them and where to put them. The plan was for Theo and Blaise to hit Crabbe Manor and raid it for anything worthwhile, especially dark arts books and destroy the manor. Bill, Brianna and Ginny would take care of Goyle Manor and do the same thing. Finally, Neville and he would take care of Malfoy Manor.

Harry told them to portkey to the top floor of the manors and immediately sensor sweep the area with their watch to determine enemy location. Under invisibility blankets, they were to exterminate any opposition and raid the libraries for any decent books and magical artefacts. When they were done they were to conjure propane clouds on each floor and set up a bomb on both the upper and main floor. The bomb timers were to be set with a thirty-minute delay. Each team was to carry a shrunken storage trunk for books and artefacts.

Harry looked at his watch and noticed that it was already eight a.m. He looked at his troops and said, "All right, I want this to go smooth and by the numbers. Don't take any chances. Now, if you are in a tight fight, for god's sake portkey out of there! Remember we can always come back to finish the job you are doing, portkey back to Potter castle. There is still business to be finished there." He looked at Theo, Brianna and Blaise with his last words. They all looked into his eyes and knew that they were going to settle some scores.

Harry said, "Are there any last minute questions?" Everyone looked at each other, but it seemed everyone was quite clear on their objectives. Harry then said, "Meeting adjourned. Let's meet our objectives and get out safely." With that they went to their lockers and put on their full battle robes. When they were done, Harry noticed Akima walking towards him.

Akima saw Harry suit up and wanted to see if he needed some help. He approached Harry and said, "Looks like you are going for some fun, do you guys need any help?" Harry could see the eager look in his eyes, and Harry filled him on what they were doing and told Akima to suit up and gave him the coordinates to Malfoy Manor to program on his ring. He would join Neville and him at Malfoy Manor. When they were done, Harry gave the signal and they portkeyed to their destinations.

Harry arrived at the top floor of Malfoy Manor along with Neville, and Akima. They had landed in Lucius' master bedroom. They all activated their watch and completed a full sweep of the Manor. Just as Harry had expected, it was empty except for some elves. Speaking of elves, one showed up in from of Harry with huge tennis ball green eyes and said, "You is not Master? What is you doing here?"

Harry looked down at the little elf and said in his most dangerous cold voice, "Take the other elves with you to Hogwarts, because this place will be destroyed in about thirty minutes. If you stay you will die a painful death. I release you of you bond to the Malfoy family as they also will be dead very soon."

Kinky, looked at the strangers with a frightful look and squeaked, "Yes sir, Kinky tell the other's to leave and go to Hogwarts. Please do not hurt elves sir." Kinky could feel the power emanating from the strangers and she was truly scared. Harry looked down at her and said, "Go now!" The little elf immediately popped away. Harry told Neville and Akima to sweep the Manor and meet in the library.

Harry slowly made his way to the library and carefully looked for the master registry, which would show him the full listing of all the books in the main library. After a minute of searching, Harry found the book and began looking for any interesting books he thought might be useful. Harry took out one of his storage trunk and began loading the whole library. He would sort it out later.

Some of these books were ancient and would prove valuable to his troops. Although the main library contained some rather interesting and unique works on dark arts practitioner, Harry was far more interested what was hidden underneath the drawing room floor. Harry remembered what Malfoy had told them in the Slytherin common room in their second year. Harry also knew from scanning Malfoy's memories, that the secret room which, was hidden by wards, contained the really valuable manuscripts and dark arts objects.

Harry met up with Neville and Akima and said, "Status?"

Neville immediately replied, "All rooms have been swept and no hostiles have been found. All of the elves have evacuated the premises."

Harry smiled and answered back, "Good job you guys. Now I want you to look at the master registry and look for any books on Horcruxes, Dark Battle magic, Ritual Magic, Runes, Arithmancy and Necromancy. I want to know what our enemy is capable of. Take care of any wards that may be present. Some of these are pretty fucking nasty. If you are not sure, let me know. I will be trying to break the wards cloaking the room underneath the drawing room. You guys keep to the library." They both nodded to Harry and began their search.

Harry meanwhile brought up his aura reading ability and carefully began scanning the walls and floor in the drawing room. After a minute of searching he found the spot where the ambient energy changed. Harry cast his most powerful parseltongue ward breakers, and in no time he had dispelled the wards and curses guarding the room. Harry opened a trap door and cast a powerful _Lumos_ spell. The room seemed clear enough and Harry carefully made his way down to the bottom of the chamber.

The first thing that Harry noticed, were the many shelves with books, scrolls and artefacts. Harry also noticed some pretty powerful curses similar to the ones he had detected on the objects he recovered from the snake statues mouth in the Chamber of Secrets a while back. Harry took out his wand and began chanting and weaving some complicated parseltongue charms. After about thirty minutes of casting spells, and drawing runic symbols, a soft popping sound was heard and the wards guarding the shelves of the chamber collapsed. Harry carefully made his way into the bookshelves first. He was surprised to see several shelves filled with some rare dark arts scripts and potions tomes. There were also many scrolls lining the top shelves with some objects along with a locket, a set of ritual knives, and some gemstones.

Harry riffled through many of the books and found a couple of tomes on soul magic. He recalled reading several references in his ancient dark arts training about soul magic, but failed to understand its true significance until riffling through this particular book. It went on to explain the intricacy of soul magic. The collection of texts and scrolls present in this section of the library was priceless to some degree. Harry decided to take it all. Harry completely emptied the contents of the hidden chamber and put it all into his storage trunk. When he was done, he got out of the hidden chamber and told Neville to go upstairs and conjure propane clouds through out the whole floor and set the timer on the magical bomb for forty five minutes instead of thirty five.

Harry told Akima to do the same thing on the main floor but wait until there was only fifteen minutes on the countdown. Harry decided to inspect the Dungeons and opened the cells one by one. He came to the cell before last and found two wizards and15 witches in various stages of torture. They all looked extremely famished and dehydrated. Even in their state, Harry could tell that these people had incredibly good looks.

Harry suddenly remembered the summer before his fourth year and the Quidditch game. He remembered the pure Veelas and these people reminded him of Veelas. Harry noticed that all of the prisoners had platinum blond hair with very regal features to them. Harry found his voice and bellowed, "I mean you no harm. I am here to release you from this cursed place. I ask you not to attack me when I release you."

Harry heard the sound of a woman who said, "You have nothing to fear from us wizard, as you can see we are in no condition to do anything even if we wanted to."

Harry immediately waved his wand and dissolved their chains. He then took out two rings and enlarged them. He programmed a coordinate, which would take the prisoners outside the Manor wards. Harry said, "Is there one of you who speaks for this group?"

The Veelas all looked at each other and then a gorgeous woman who looked to be in her thirties nodded at them and approached him and said, "My name is Tiara and I speak for my group. What is your intentions, wizard?"

Harry suddenly felt slightly dizzy in her presence but quickly managed to fight off the light headed feeling and answered back, "As I have told you, I only mean to release you from this place. I mean you no harm. I will create a portkey to get you out of here. In any case, you don't have a choice because I am about to blow this putrid shithole in about fifteen minutes. I don't have any time to waste."

The leader regarded him for a few seconds and turned to her group and spoke in a language that Harry did not recognize. They suddenly all approached him in a non-threatening manner. Harry looked at them and decided that they weren't going to attack him.

Harry had them divide in groups, and told them to touch the rings, and he activated them. All of the prisoners were immediately portkeyed to the southern edge of Malfoy grounds in a forest on a black pebble beach by a small riverbed. They were outside the influence of the manor wards. Harry then made his way to the next cell and this time found a bunch of prisoners who looked like they had been beaten and tortured. There were ten of them and something seemed a bit off about them.

Harry looked at the nearest girl. She seemed to have been spared from any beatings but she looked slightly emaciated. Harry noticed her delicate porcelain looking skin, bright ruby red lips and her electric blue eyes. Her hair was jet black and tied in a ponytail except for the locks which slightly obscured her face. Harry recognized her as a Vampire. Harry shook his head and realized that he needed to get some sleep fast. He should have known that there were prisoners in Malfoy's dungeon. He should have taken longer examining the memories he had taken from Lucius. Hi sensor sweep with his watch had not detected these people. Probably not powerful enough to scan through multiple wards he thought. Harry took out another doughnut shaped ring, enlarged it and made another portkey.

The girl whom he had noticed was now watching him when he said, "I mean you no harm. I will release you and give you a portkey to get out of this damn hole. You have no choice anyway, as this place will be destroyed in roughly fifteen minutes. "

Shauna of the Gangrel clan gave the wizard in front of her a good look over. After her countless centuries on this planet she had met many great people, and she recognized power when she saw it. This wizard standing before her reeked of power the likes of which she had never seen, that much she was certain of. She could not make out his face as he was wearing a hooded cloak and had numerous glamour charms, which hid two thirds of his face. One feature that could not be hidden was his glowing green eyes. Shauna had never seen such glowing green neon eyes before.

The wizard turned around and she was able to make out the two scorpions and the black phoenix markings on the back of his battle robe and suddenly her eyes grew wide. If she was correct she was looking at the famed Scorpion Sorcerer that has been making the news circle. The wizard before her intrigued her immensely. He was not arrogant like most wizards, which proved that he controlled his power and not the other way around. The Vampire clans were very much aware of this wizard's exploits. Their very capture at the hands of the wizard Malfoy proved to her that the Dark Lord was getting desperate. They actually thought that her father would obey their demands because they had his daughter in their grasps. Clearly they didn't understand Vampire culture.

Vampires were incredibly intelligent and one thing she knew was that if the Scorpion Sorcerer was here to destroy this Manor, then it seemed possible that Malfoy had met his end at this wizard's hand. She needed to know more about this wizard, and for that to happen she had to stay alive. She suddenly bellowed, "Kindred members of the Gangrel clan you will not harm this Sorcerer or you will face death at my fathers hands. May Nicademus have mercy on your soul if you dare disobey!" She looked at the Sorcerer and said, "My name is Shauna and we will follow your instructions, Sorcerer."

Harry nodded at her, and looked at his watch. He quickly made a portkey and told the group to approach and take hold of the ring. They did as they were told and within seconds they were gone. Harry quickly apparated back to the main floor where he saw Neville.

Neville had been looking at his watch and was getting worried that something had happened to Harry. He looked up and suddenly found Harry looking at him. Neville said, "I was getting worried what took you so long?"

Harry smiled at Neville and said, "I love living dangerously." Neville just glowered while Harry was smirking at him. "I'll explain my tardiness once we get out of here." Neville simply nodded. He knew there was a reason why he had been late and he would find out soon enough.

Akima smirked at the two of them and said, "I believe that it's time we exited these premises and watch the show." Harry nodded at his colleagues and made sure that they had the trunks in their possessions and then they all copied him in conjuring large propane clouds. With five minutes to spare they took Harry's portkey and found themselves appearing in between two groups of people.

Neville and Akima immediately whipped out their wands ready to fight when Harry grabbed their wand arms and lowered them. Harry quickly said, "I found these two groups of people locked up in Malfoy's dungeon. They have been severely mistreated and in good conscience I couldn't let these people be killed. The fact that they were in Malfoy's dungeons tells me that they weren't close to the Dark Lord."

Suddenly, they all felt the tremendous explosion, which shook the grounds and sent a pressure wave that knocked everyone off their feet even though they were a minimum of two kilometres away. Harry was the first on his feet and noticed a massive column of swirling electric blue fire. Harry noticed that the blue fire completely incinerated everything it touched. The foundation of the Manor where the dungeon would have been had turned into molten lava. Harry had not expected this kind of result and now wondered if two bombs had been too much.

Maybe he thought it was due to the fact that he had used the Naquadria bombs instead of the Naquadah ones. Harry had not had time to calculate a power output for the bombs. Thank God they had all been in a low-lying depression by the riverbed otherwise they would have been cooked. The grounds surrounding the now destroyed manor were completely burned over what looked like a kilometer radius. Holy shit Harry thought, these little babies pack one hell of a punch.

Neville and Akima came to join Harry. Neville whistled and said, "Damn! How the hell did you make those contraptions so powerful?"

Harry answered back, "I used a purified version of the mineral that makes up your new wand coupled with some creative charms and raw magical energy."

Akima said, "We have to get out of here shortly, the ministry goons are bound to get here soon. This magical explosion must have set off every ministry detector from the North coast of Scotland to London."

Harry replied, "Yes, no doubt the ministry will have Aurors crawling all over this place in minutes. However, it would be very impolite if we didn't leave our calling card, now would it?" Harry smirked and bellowed," _Ahak-Nakeb_," which sounded like a hissing noise to everyone else. Suddenly a large black shiny scorpion rose high in the sky.

Harry then turned around to find the rescued groups looking at him with some trepidation. The leader of the Veela group seemed too deep in thoughts, while Shauna of the Vampires group was giving him an almost lustful look. Shauna was the first to speak and said, "Interesting magic you have there?"

Harry replied, "I like being creative."

Shauna laughed and answered back, "Is that what you call it Sorcerer? Well I don't know about you but my group is tired and I also do not fancy staying here. You wouldn't happen to have a place where we could regroup and make some plans would you?"

Harry looked at both groups, and knew they needed some food and medicine. Harry also knew that making contacts and bonding with the other magical races which made up their world was crucial into bringing them into forming a political alliance. The only way that the other races would play an active part in the wizarding world was for them to have a say in how it was run.

Harry said, "I have a place that I can take you where you will be given food and medicine as well as take some time to recuperate. I swear to both of you on my magic that I will not harm you unless you mean to harm me first." Both group leaders talked to their clans and came back and told him that they trusted him after a fashion. Well, Harry thought, at least it's a start.

Harry took their portkey and reprogrammed them for the Trunk Manor by the lake. He was not going to reveal the Scorpion Lair until he was sure about them. Harry told his associate where they were going and Harry activated both portkeys and they were gone. A few minutes after they were gone, a lone figure with serpentine feature apparated about a kilometer from where Harry had been. The moment he looked into the sky, his face twisted in pure fury and confirmed his fears.

**Flashback one hour earlier **

Bellatrix entered the throne room with a very wary look on her face. Her sister, Lucius and her nephew had not reported back to headquarters. They should have been back over six hours ago. Now she had to tell her master that they their search had not found a trace of them. She had tortured some muggle fool whom she had captured and lived close to the general area where Lucius had last been seen.

The only useful information she got from the disgusting creature was that he had claimed to see a holo-ga-ram. She had learned from the fool that it was a muggle word for a three dimensional picture. The vermin claimed to have seen the image of a scorpion in the sky. If that were the case, then the situation was dire indeed.

She approached her Dark Lord and was about to kneel when he waived her off and said, "We can dispense with the formalities for know. Report!"

Bella answered, "My lord we have searched all of Lucius' favorite places, his home and finally the coordinates which you gave me. I was able to interrogate a muggle, and he told me he saw a scorpion floating above the house that Lucius had been at."

Bellatrix saw her Lord narrow his eyes and in a voice that could make a dementor shudder said, "How is it that this Scorpion wizard seems to know my plans? We have a spy in our ranks I am sure of this. Maybe Lucius is the traitor and decided to leave me." He spat the last with such distaste that Bellatrix almost jumped out of her boots.

In a quivering voice Bellatrix replied, "My-my Lord, Lucius had been your most faithful servant from the beginning, I can't think of a more loyal supporter for you, my Lord." She noticed that she had been holding her breath in and managed to slowly exhale.

Voldemort suddenly stood up and walked towards one of the gargoyles and lifted its head. He looked inside the head and saw the blue pulsing light being emitted by the ward crystals. Voldemort knew that Malfoy wards protecting his home were still intact.

Voldemort didn't curse Bellatrix because deep down, he believed her. He simply wanted to scare her a bit to let her know what he thought of treachery. At any rate, he could no longer afford to curse his troops for no good reason anymore. At the rate he was losing them, he would no longer have anyone left from his first rise power to serve him.

Voldemort had read Bellatrix's mind and found that she was telling the truth. This did not mean that Lucius was dead. He could simply be trying to evade the man. Voldemort was loathed to admit it, but even his most experienced inner circle members would meet their doom at this wizard's hand. He was the only one who could stand up to the little upstart. Even he didn't think that duelling this man would be easy. The only reason he didn't worry so much was that he could always resurrect himself if worse comes to worse.

He doubted that this man knew very much about the ancient magic he had used to safeguard his immortality. Only two other members' of his inner council knew of the measures he had taken and Lucius was one of them. If this Scorpion wizard had captured Lucius then it was absolutely vital that he rescue him. It wouldn't do for this wizard to find out his secrets.

Lucius knew the penalty revealing his secrets. Voldemort had put a binding curse on Lucius, which would cause him to die instantly if he ever tried to speak of his secrets. Voldemort had taught the man Occlumency himself and knew that he was as accomplished as Snape was in the art. He was pretty confident that Lucius would hold his mind intact, after he had taught him, and Voldemort never fails.

Voldemort felt that it was high time that he took back his dark items from Malfoy manor. He decided to pay a little visit to the Malfoy family home. Secretly he hoped that Lucius and family were back, so that he could properly punish the lot for failing to stick to the plan. Voldemort hated it when his minions failed to carefully follow his extremely well crafted plans. With those final thoughts, Voldemort the most feared Dark Lord of the century apparated just outside Malfoy Manors wards by the signet stone, which would open up a hole for him through the wards.

The sight that met Voldemort was one he would never have thought possible. The whole manor was ablaze, and a large Scorpion was twitching its tail in the sky. Voldemort face twisted in fury and apparated back to his manor.

**End Flashback**

Shortly after Voldemort left, a group of investigative Aurors appeared on site. One of these Aurors had a swivelling eye, which was currently examining the large scorpion floating above what was left of Malfoy manor. Alastor Moody suddenly had a wicked grin on his face. Justice has finally been handed down to that bastard family, he thought. Moody was truly impressed with the destructive energy that had been brought to bear on this attack. It looked like the molten rock was quickly solidifying, but they would have to wait a while to get near the site.

Auror Dawlish came running to him and said, "Moody, what should we do? The site is too hot to handle."

Alastor rolled his eye and sneered back, "Perhaps the use of some well placed cooling charms would be a good start." Dawlish just stood there like a cow chewing on cud when Mad Eye Moody barked, "NOW you imbecile! What are you waiting for? Christmas?" Dawlish snapped out of his stupor and ran to direct the other Aurors. Alastor was now surer than ever that he would be contacting Potter very soon.

Meanwhile, Harry and his group suddenly found themselves in the portkey room of the trunk manor. Harry told them to wait a minute. He made his way upstairs to the crystal room and deactivated the room wards except for the crystal room and the library. Harry came back to the portkey room and took the more injured guests to the infirmary.

Harry then called Xiana to tell her to get some healing potions, nutrient potions and tell Hinrich, and Fleur to join him at the trunk manor. He then asked Xiana to make sure that everyone was wearing their hoods with concealment charms. It wouldn't do for anyone to find out who they were yet. Harry then called Bill and Blaise to find out how their mission went.

Harry had to pull the receiver away when Bill was shouting about the bloody strength of his bombs. Bill told him that he had to get to Gringotts and meet with his boss. Blaise ended up doing the same thing and he had to remind them all, that these were experimental weapons and therefore some learning was needed.

Harry then told Blaise to bring Brianna and Theo and meet him at lunchtime at Potter castle on the North grounds. It wasn't long before Xiana showed up with Fleur and Hinrich carrying an assortment of potions with them. Harry met them at the portkey room and led them to meet Tiara of the Veelas and Shauna leader of the Gangrel Vampire clan.

Like a pro, Xiana didn't bat an eye but she turned to meet his eyes with an unspoken message that they would talk later to plan some strategies. Xiana gracefully walked to Tiara and Shauna and said, "On behalf of the Scorpion Sorcerer I welcome you to stay with us until you are ready to travel once again. If you could please show us to your wounded we will do everything we can to heal them."

Both Tiara and Shauna shook hands with Xiana and thanked them all for aiding them in their time of need. Xiana bowed her head to both ladies and went to the trunk's infirmary. They found Harry, Akima and Neville transfiguring more medical beds to take in all of the wounded. They all took their time settling the wounded and Hinrich and Fleur began scanning their injuries and casting spells.

Finally, Hinrich came to Harry and said, "We are going to need some fresh blood for the Vampires. The potions I have will work only if it is taken with blood. We don't have anywhere near enough blood for them. There natural healing abilities are starting to kick in, but this will go a lot faster with blood."

Harry's brows furrowed for a bit thinking of where he could get some blood and finally opted for the most obvious solution. Shauna came over and said, "Any problems?"

Harry answered back, "It seems that for your people to heal properly, their medicine needs to be taken with blood instead of beef Wellington. As we are very low on our blood supplies, I need to go make a withdrawal. If you will excuse me, I'll be back very shortly."

With that Harry silently apparated from the trunk to Surrey Red Cross. He decided to go there since he knew where it was and had seen his bitch of an aunt donate blood there on several occasions. Harry apparated in the back of the building and cast an invisibility charm on himself. Thirty minutes later, Harry apparated directly from the blood banks fridge to his trunk manor. He quickly made his way back to the infirmary and took out one of his storage trunks and enlarged it. He then emptied over forty litre bags of blood into the infirmary storage cabinet. All of the cabinets carried stasis fields for preserving potions, salves and other organic material.

Shauna's eyebrows were near her hairline and said, "Where did you get all of that?"

Harry answered back, "Well your friendly neighborhood muggle Red Cross of course. Will this blood the way it is packaged be a problem for you?"

Shauna answered back, "No, it will taste a bit stale but it is still quite usable for us. Thank you for all your efforts on our behalf. It is very refreshing to see a wizard treat us with respect. The wizarding world usually regards us as vermin."

Harry answered back, "You are welcome. As for the wizarding world, it is high time they receive a long overdue kick in the ass. Pardon my language."

Shauna laughed and replied, "We definitely need to have a long talk, Scorpion Sorcerer. You are most intriguing. Perhaps we can help each other out in the near future to our mutual benefit?"

Harry replied, "It would be my pleasure to form closer ties to the Vampire clans. I admit to you that my knowledge of your people is rather limited and I would welcome and exchange of information and ideas. If you will excuse me I need to meet up with some of my troops. My people here will see to your needs, Lady Shauna."

Harry nodded his head towards her and was about to depart when Tiara gently put her hand on his forearm and said, "I wanted to express to you my thanks for saving us from Voldemort's minions. Queen Tulia of the Veelas will hear of your kind act. On behalf of my people and as ambassador of the Queen's court, I would like to ask you if it would be possible to open up diplomatic channels with your group."

Harry answered back, "It would be my pleasure to take you up on your offer Lady Tiara." She smiled and nodded at him.

Harry couldn't believe his ears. Things were moving so fast it was starting to overwhelm him a bit. He needed to organize his negotiating team real soon. If he could get the Vampires and Veelas in his camp, he could start discussions on the formation of a new government. Immediately Remus, Xiana and Fleur came to mind as ambassadors. Lycans and Vampires were considered dark creatures and the Vampires would readily accept Remus. Fleur was part Veela and would know how do deal with them. Xiana was a natural negotiator and extremely flexible. With the help of Remus and Fleur she would be able to get them into an alliance. With that final thought, Harry apparated back to Potter castle.

**11:30 A.M Potter Castle **

Harry materialized on the North grounds of his estate, and walked toward the Gazebo. He met Blaise, Theo, and Brianna and told them to follow him. Harry walked to the castle and was met by Dobby at the door.

Dobby was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and said, "Oh, Master Harry is back home. You is looking very tired. Dobby will tell Winky to start lunch. Mistress younger Bini's and new stranger be hungry very soon?" Blaise was the first one to realize that Dobby was addressing him and replied, "Yes Dobby, we will be staying for lunch."

Harry then introduced Theo to Dobby and then they followed Harry until they were in the dungeons. Theo spotted the deep blue flames coming off the torches and noticed how much colder it was getting the further they went down. Theo had to admit that he was quite impressed with Harry's ancestral home that was not only beautiful but extremely functional as well.

They finally reached the lower dungeons and Harry began a series of hissing and wand movements across two doors. There was a crimson glow and a soft pop and Harry opened the massive steel door on the left. The sight that greeted Theo made was like no other he had ever seen in his life. Even his father's cruelties in the name of the Dark Lord did not approach this gothic nightmare. Theo looked up and saw Draco and a sneer appeared on his face. It looked like Harry had a real nice go at the bastard, but it seemed like a whole lot more needed to be done.

Brianna followed Theo's gaze and sneer and now noticed Draco hanging on meat hooks. Her face became carved in stone and a malicious glint shone in her eyes. Blaise looked at his twin and noticed the maniacal glint in them. Blaise looked around and couldn't help but admire his brother in law's thoroughness. The man did nothing in half, he mused.

Harry took his wand out and brought Draco down from his position, petrified him, moved him to the back wall and put him back in chains and then enervated him. Harry said in as cold a voice as possible, "You have two hours to do as you please. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle are across the hall. You can kill those two today if you want. If you decide to kill them, please make sure that you lop their heads off and put a stasis charm on their bodies. I have a little surprise for our dear headmaster. As for Draco torture, him all you want but I want the pleasure of killing him. That little fucker has been the bane of my existence since I started at good old Hogwarts."

Blaise said, "Are we allowed to also torture Malfoy Sr. and his whore?"

Harry replied, "Absolutely! After all, I wouldn't want Lucius to get bored with my company. As you can see the Scorpion dungeons are well equipped, it would sadden me to see all of this fine equipment go to waste by simply using the Cruciatus. Now I'll be taking a quick nap, but I'll be back in two hours. Make sure that you are never alone with the prisoners. I will be putting my darkest wards just outside the entrance to the dungeons, so I strongly advise that you wait until I come back and pick you up."

They all nodded their understanding and Harry made his way back to out of the dungeon but put his ward up before he left. He walked up to the Potter library and took out two trunks and enlarged them and put them by the catalogue desk. He called Dobby and the little elf popped just beside him jumping excitedly as usual. Harry couldn't help smirking at Dobby and wished he had some of his energy.

He told Dobby to take the books out of the trunk, catalogue them both in paper and on the computer and to place them at their appropriated place on the shelves. He told Dobby to create more shelves and identifications categories for those subjects, which his library did not have. Dobby was all too happy to oblige. Harry told Dobby to wake him in two hours and that he was following his idea of getting some rest. Dobby nodded his head vigorously and Harry walked up to his bedroom and took his clothes off and the moment his head hit the pillow he was out like a light.

A while later, Harry felt something shaking him slightly, but kept mumbling "Gerrrooofff me. Sooo tiiirrreeed." He heard Dobby say, "Master must get up. Mistress Xiana has just arrived and is in the living room." Harry's eyes suddenly opened and told Dobby to tell her that he would be down in fifteen minutes.

Harry quickly got out of bed and had a quick shower. He put on a pair of black denim jeans, and a blue tartan flannel shirt. He put a bit of cologne and looked at the date Thursday, October 16. He changed his Scorpion earring to a ruby one and finally put on his Basilisk robe and boots and fixed his two Katanas to his back and made his way for the living room.

Xiana was proofreading her latest article for the Discovery and noticed her husband walking down the stairs. She noticed how tired he was this morning and he looked a little bit more refreshed. Bar any mishaps or fates demands, she was going to make sure that her family was resting for the weekend. They deserved it and her husband needed to recharge his batteries. Shauna and Tiara told her that they needed to talk to Harry tonight and she told them that he would be available from seven pm to whenever. She knew that Harry had been on some raids late last night and early this morning but did not have all of the details yet.

Xiana stood up and walked to her husband and gave him a hug and a kiss. Harry was the first to speak and said, "Let's sit, I need to bring you up on what has happened these last twelve hours." Harry didn't spare any details.

Inside he was scared to disappoint Xiana over his torturing of the Malfoys but she needed to know all of it. For her part, Xiana carefully listened to Harry's description of the Malfoy's family torture of the muggle family, Harry's attack on the death eaters, and his captures of the Malfoys, Crabbe and Goyle.

Harry explained his rage at what they had done to the little girl and boy and his torture of those, he finished detailing the destruction of the prisoners' homes this morning. Xiana could see the conflicting emotions he had over his torture of the Malfoys. She knew deep down that he was scared of her reaction.

Xiana was not a big fan of torture, but she knew that their enemy had tortured countless victims and although she felt that she did not have the stomach to do it, she wasn't about to reprimand her husband for doing it. She also knew that he would make a recording of his thoughts and send it to Voldemort and his death eaters to let them know that other forces could play at their game.

Like she had learned during their summer training, psychological warfare was an integral weapon in their arsenal. The only demand that she had was that anyone's torture not exceed two days. After two days, the prisoner had to be terminated. Her reason for this was that two days provided ample time for them to get information. The more obvious reason was that it provided less opportunity for the prisoner to escape, or his contacts to locate him.

Harry slowly let out his breath and readily agreed with Xiana. He had not thought that far but her reasoning was flawless. She was right. With legillimency, truth potions, and torture they could get all the information they wanted in two days time.

The quicker the targets were eliminated the less likelihood of a mishap. Harry then told her what was currently going on in the dungeons and asked her if she wanted to come. Xiana did not know if she had the stomach to witness tortured prisoner but then she had already witnessed the Dark Lord's tortured victims through Harry's memories during their bonding. She nodded at her husband and they left for the dungeon.

Harry and Xiana arrived in the dungeons. Xiana followed Harry and could hear screaming coming from Crabbe and Goyle's cell. Harry pushed the door and found Brianna holding Crabbe under the Cruciatus. Harry noticed that they had no upper body clothes and found that their chest had a large scorpion branded on their skin. Above the branded Scorpion letters had been cut into the skin, which read _Death Eaters Your Time Has Come._ Harry also noticed the empty eye sockets. Pussy yellow fluid was still running down their cheeks. Boy did they ever get creative Harry thought.

Xiana for her part was fighting very hard to keep the bile from leaving her mouth. She remembered what they had done to her sister and found herself not caring what happened to them. She noticed the dark blood stain where their privates used to be no doubt. No other curse except the castration curse could cause that much bleeding. Although the sickening feeling in her stomach was still there, it had become more manageable. She looked at Harry and said, "Let's get this over with. I'll be waiting for all of you in the library."

Harry nodded and replied "I'll see you there in fifteen minutes."

Harry watched Xiana walk out of the dungeon and when she was gone, he told the group about the new prisoner policy and the reason for it. He told them to finish off Crabbe and Goyle who were by now unconscious from the pain. Harry saw Blaise and Brianna take out their Katana and Harry went to take care of the Malfoys. Harry reached the Malfoy cell and saw the damage that had been inflicted on them. They too had been branded like Crabbe and Goyle. Both Narcissa and Lucius were bleeding from the mouth, nose and ears and Harry could see that they were suffering from the Cruciatus over use. Their brains had been fried like poor Neville's parents. Harry looked at Draco and he too had been branded with the same markings.

Draco managed to find Potter looking at him and said in his last defiant stand, "You can kill me Potter, but the Dark Lord will eventually get you! Why don't you just finish this little game of yours and get it over with."

Harry sneered and said, "You are incredible Malfoy. Even facing your death you can't even find the morale to repent for your crimes. "

Draco snorted while coughing up blood and replied, "That's a little rich coming from you Potter. You are just as criminal as we are. You can make yourself believe anything you want Potter but you are as cold a blooded killer as you make us out to be. "

Harry sneered and replied, "I am nothing like you inbred! I don't go out and rape, mutilate and kill innocent babies and children. I didn't start this fight, but I am sure as hell going to finish it one way or another you can count on that. If it means systematically killing every fucking scumbag pureblood inbred who follows the dark wanker, then so be it. That little golden boy you keep referring to died a while back, Malfoy. It was your world that killed him. Just like a Phoenix he was reborn from the ashes of betrayal, neglect, abuse and indifference. It's best if you die anyway Malfoy. The wizarding world as you know is about to be destroyed. Purebloods as you so aptly refer to yourself will have very little say on how it is governed. "

Before Malfoy could say another word, Harry quickly took out his wand and cast _Abripio-_ _Exoculo._ There was a ripping sound and Malfoy screamed clutching at his face as the pain afflicted him. Harry then cast _Saxificus-_ _Collyrium _Harry picked them up and put it in his pocket. He then took out his Katana and without another word he lopped Draco's head off. Harry then proceeded to do the same thing to Lucius and Narcissa. He put their heads on a pike stabbed the other end into their chest. He then cast a stasis charm on their bodies and said, "May God have mercy on your soul."

Harry then took Draco's pike and levitated his body to Crabbe and Goyle's cell. Harry met up with the others and put told Theo to transfigure pikes and put Vincent and Gregory's head on them, and fix the other end into their bodies. Harry then took out three obsidian stones and transfigured them into scorpions and implanted a small black diamond chip in them. He then created three-neutrino portkeys with a hologram charm. He put a sticking charm on their forehead and stuck the scorpion portkey to their forehead. He made sure to add a self-destruct charm to the portkey.

Harry then said, "Make sure you all show up for breakfast tomorrow. It's time to shock the lemon drop-sucking idiot from his morale high ground. It's time to show him that some things aren't worth second chances." Harry told them to meet up with Xiana in the library while he finished with Lucius and Narcissa. Harry did the same thing to them but programmed the portkey the Ministry cafeteria where most of the workers would be in the morning. Harry wanted maximum impact. With that done, he incinerated the prisoner's clothes and _Scourgify _the whole place. He did the same thing to the other cell and then went to meet up with Xiana and the others.

**Earlier that Morning in the Great Hall during Breakfast **

Albus Dumbledore sat in the great Hall paying little attention to his lunch. He was not even paying attention to the daily gossip, which usually provided him with much information and humor. The laughter of the children could be heard, but again he paid little attention to it. The only word to describe his current mood was frustration, plain and simple. The more he tried to reign in Potter, the worse things got. He had no doubt that Potter now knew who was responsible for the attack on his person. Since his plan had failed, Albus now definitely feared some sort of retaliation from the brat.

The young man had more then enough pent up anger towards him. He himself didn't really understand why. Every one kept telling him that his willingness to sacrifice him to Voldemort was a major factor. Albus considered the act of sacrificing one's life to destroy evil and save their world to be of the highest moral order. The boy would have been revered for all times. Instead the blasted boy grew a brain and now all of his careful plans were rendered utterly useless. The worst part was that Albus himself didn't even know what the boy was doing. He had not been able to find out where he had stayed throughout the summer much less keep track of his where about during this school year.

Albus was certain that Potter knew this Scorpion Sorcerer somehow. How long he had known him and his relationship to the dark wizard was a complete mystery to him. That is why he had looked forward to the success of his plan yesterday afternoon. Had it succeeded, he would have gotten Potter under his control once more and found out what he knew of this Scorpion Sorcerer. Instead it had turned into the complete humiliation of Granger, Weasley and the rest of the Defence Club. He felt he had again underestimated Potter's abilities.

**Flashback Late Yesterday Afternoon**

Albus looked at his watch and hurried his pace. For a man of over 150 he could really move when he set his mind to it. Albus looked around to make sure that no one was around and cast a bludgeoning curse at the knob on the Whomping Willow. Albus made his way inside the dark tunnel until he reached the isolated room on the second floor. The first thing that told him something was not right was the complete lack of sound from the other side of the door. Albus carefully opened the door but found the room empty. Albus sighed and decided to make his way to the Quidditch pitch. Maybe they were having a bit more problems subduing Potter. He decided to sneak unto the pitch. Perhaps he could assist Granger and Weasley subdue Harry and pay him back a little for the near constant excruciating headache he had given him in August.

Unknown to Albus however was that one Colin Creevey was coming back from taking spectacular pictures of a unicorn far out by the lake. Colin decided to cut across the Quidditch pitch to shorten his route. He had just rounded the North corner when he spotted some people in the distance and took out his muggle binoculars and found a naked Hermione Granger, Cho Chang and a hip swinging Ron Weasley all stuck to poles and incarcerated in some kind of metallic ropes.

Colin quickly made his way underneath the bleachers and got a good zoom angle on them and started snapping a flurry of pictures. He needed to get these out to his contact at the Daily Prophet. From his first year Colin had already figured out what he wanted to do in the magical world. He wanted to become a professional photographer for the Prophet. Getting pictures like this would go a long way in securing him a job with the Prophet in the future.

Colin was brought back from his musing when he found himself looking at a disgusting site. Eeeww he thought, Weasley creaming himself is just bloody nasty. He knew he was going to have nightmares for the rest of the week. Colin had to use all of his self-control not to burst out laughing. Granger and Chang pleading with Weasley to stop his erotic dancing was just too much. Suddenly, Colin saw a lone figure walking in the distance and when he took out his binoculars he found that the headmaster was coming his way. Colin decided to make a strategic retreat lest the headmaster find him out and confiscate these most fantastic pictures.

Albus was walking back when he looked up and saw a sight that he had not planned on. He narrowed his eyes and was now sure that Potter had been getting some secret training during the summer. If he had to wager, he would bet that this Scorpion Sorcerer was the one who had trained him. Just as he suspected in August, Potter had gone dark. Albus knew that he was a good dueller but even for him to overpower such a force meant he had to use some dark magic.

Albus took out his wand and cast several obscure revealing charms, and noticed that illusion wards reeking of dark magic had been cast. No wonder he had believed that the operation had gone flawlessly. He had never seen the effect of the real battle. As he approached the bleachers, the extent of the real battle damage became evident. To his shock he found three people stuck to poles. He cast _Coegi-Visio_ on his glasses, which allowed him to get a close up view and found Granger, Chang and Weasley naked as jay birds. Weasley seemed to be doing some kind of erotic dance.

Albus was furious, what if they were found out. This could bring some very bad press to his school, and jeopardize his already weak reputation within the ministry. He quickly made his way to them and immediately conjured clothing for them. He then removed the sticking charm and banished the poles. He proceeded repair much of the damage done to the bleachers.

When he was done, he addressed Hermione and bellowed, "I am very disappointed in all of you. This should have been a very easy assignment. With all of the training that you have had this past summer and yet you all failed to contain him. Please see that your teams get to the infirmary for some much needed healing from what I can see. Make up any decent excuse that you need. I hope that this task does not overtax your abilities? When you are done I want you, Miss Chang and young Weasley here to come to my office for a full debrief. I want to see exactly what went wrong."

**END Flashback **

Albus was brought out of his musing, by the roar of laughter that filled the great hall. He looked around to see various members of all houses pointing to Granger, Weasley and Chang. Young Mulciber from Slytherin even stood on his table and started swinging his hips. Suddenly Albus was gripped with fear. He looked at Minerva who had gone white as a sheet, and noticed that she was looking at her daily prophet.

Albus had not even noticed the Owl's lunch deliveries. He took her copy of the daily prophet, and the picture that he saw made him loose all color from his face. The entire staff seemed speechless except for Severus, who looked almost gleeful. His typical sneer was replaced with a smirk that made his face look even scarier. The ministry would be all over him now, there was no doubt of that. He needed a strategy and fast. Perhaps he could work this to his advantage. This might be a chance to cast Potter in a different light, so he hoped.

Albus immediately stood and bellowed, "Enough! Your fellow students were attacked. You should be feeling ashamed for making fun of them. Mr. Potter will be severely reprimanded for his actions I can assure you of this." The effect of releasing the culprit did not have the desired result he was looking for. Instead someone from Hufflepuff yelled back, "I hope he gets nominated for an Order of Merlin." Nearly everyone once again cracked up.

Ginny who had just made it to lunch after leaving her boyfriend at Potter castle sat herself in front of Pavarti. She was thinking about the destruction of Goyle manor and Harry's new weapon, when she saw the Owl's deliver the mail. She thought nothing of it, but suddenly she heard Pavarti burst into laughter while pointing at a picture.

Ginny leaned over to have a look and nearly spewed her lunch. The last thing she needed was to see was her stupid brother come all over himself. Some things should never be shared within a family. She turned to Ron and put on her most jeering face and said, "Serves you bloody idiots right for ambushing Harry like you did. I hope mom skins you alive when sees that picture. I wouldn't be surprised if she pulls you from school. It's not like you are learning anything anyway." With that she stood up and walked off to go to the library.

Meanwhile Hermione, Ron and Cho ran out of the great hall intent on getting away as fast as possible. The one thing that was running through Ron's mind was revenge on Potter. Had they been telepathically linked, he would have noticed that the others were thinking the exact same thing.

Ron looked over and saw Hermione and Cho were as red in the face as he was. No other words to describe it, they had been completely humiliated. Cho was seething. If they ever caught the person responsible for sending these pictures, they would die from a horrible and painful death. Now that he thought about it, Potter was the only person who could have done something like this.

Ron said, "Guys, I am almost certain that Potter was the one who delivered the pictures to the Daily Prophet. What do you think?"

Hermione replied, "Well, who else could it be. There was no one else there who witnessed our battle except him. The secrecy charm I put on the rest of the team would prevent any of them from blabbing."

Cho had followed Granger's logic and said, "I agree with Hermione reasoning. Potter had to be the one. He is going to wish he was never born."

Ron nodded and kept thinking that when the time was right, the conceded little bastard was going to get it. First chance he got, he would pound the piss out of him. His martial arts training with the Aurors during the summer would be put to great use. He could almost relish the impact of his fist on Potter's face. Of course none of them seemed to have taken the time to analyze the battle. Had they done so, they would have prevented themselves from making another huge mistake.

**Early Afternoon at Potter Castle **

Harry was busy listening to Blaise and Theo's description of their attack on Crabbe Manor. It appeared that only Crabbe and Goyle's mother were having tea on the main floor when they popped in. Theo killed Elvira Goyle while Blaise iced Alexy Crabbe. They then looked around the family library but found very little dark arts books. After destroying the Manor they portkeyed back to Potter castle. Brianna's story was even more uneventful. Her group completed a full sweep of the area but found nobody. They burned the Manor to the ground, and portkeyed back.

Bill left soon after to go to Gringotts and Ginny had an early afternoon class so she also left before lunch. They went over some training schedule and when they would use time flux again. The rest of the groups had afternoon classes so Harry told them to stand down and relax for the duration of the weekend. He congratulated them on a mission well done, and some well deserved justice handed down. He told them to watch for the show tomorrow at breakfast. They were to meet up Sunday afternoon to carry out a post mission analysis.

When they were gone, Harry made his way to the bar and got himself a large glass of brandy and sat in front of the living room fire place. Xiana came over to tell him she was going back to the trunk Manor to check on their guests and see if they needed anything. She bent down and gave him a soft kiss. She then made her way to the trunk manor laid up against the South wall of the library and disappeared. Harry finished his drink and went back to the master bedroom to get more rest.

Harry woke up late that afternoon and felt a whole lot better physically and mentally. He looked at his watch and noticed that it was 5:30 p.m. He quickly got up and showered. He then got dressed and put on his full battle robe with weaponry. He passed by one of his calendars and noticed that it was time to take one of his bone and blood enhancing potions. He felt that this batch would probably be the last one.

The previous week he had entered a long meditative trance, which allowed him to reach his magical core and explore all of his magical channels. He no longer felt any pain or discomfort in bringing forth his body magic, which meant that he had attained maximum magical channel growth. He had also noticed that he could now do wandless magic silently up to six-year spells. He would always need his wand for advanced dark arts. However he could now cast silently and wandlessly several potent wards and shields. Offensively he could do the same thing with some of the more simple lethal dark arts spells.

This weekend Harry would devote lots of time practicing his body magic, martial arts and sword fighting with Akima. Harry looked at himself in the mirror and put his cloak hood on and cast the appropriate concealment charms. When he was satisfied, he apparated to the trunk manor by the great lake at Hogwarts. Harry made his way from the portkey room to the infirmary. He soon found Tiara and Shauna talking with his wife. Fleur and Hinrich were discussing the merits of some kind of potion. As Harry approached they all looked up and greeted him.

Harry turned to Xiana and said, "Status report."

Xiana replied, "All patients have been treated and most of them should be fine by tomorrow. The Vampires are recovering at an astounding speed. The Veelas are also doing very well. Both races are magically powerful. By tomorrow they should all be able to return to their homes."

Harry liked the news and answered back, "Excellent work from all of you." He then turned to his guests and said," I am glad to see that both your peoples have suffered no permanent casualties. When you are done settling your people for the night, you are welcome to meet me in the parlor for some talk and relaxation. We can get to know each other better. I know by now that you must be wondering who we really are but I must ask you to wait until we know each other better and have built up a mutual trust between our peoples before I divulge such critical information. "

They agreed to his idea and told him that they would be honored to meet him in the parlor. Harry then turned around to his colleagues and told them to also join in for some information sharing and relaxation. Harry was about to get some drinks ready at the bar, when Xiana gently approached him and put her hand on his forearm.

Xiana then whispered, "Neville left for his class after lunch, but came back with a copy of the daily prophet. I think you will want to see this. I think husband of mine that this might be the opening we are looking for to start putting some nails in the lemon drop sucker's coffin. It moves up our timetable slightly but I believe that we should seize this opportunity. Let me know what you think once you have had a chance to read the article. We will talk later at home." Every time Xiana referred to home she always meant Potter Castle. Harry knew that his wife had grown extremely attached to their home.

Harry answered back, "I hear and obey my, Lady." Xiana smiled and playfully slapped his shoulder. They made their way to the bar and Harry waited for his guests to arrive. When they showed up, he told them to make themselves comfortable, and asked them what they wanted to drink.

Xiana helped him distribute the drinks to everyone and they both sat together one of the love seats. Harry decided that honesty and candor would work best with these people. Vampires and Veelas had an uncanny ability to discern truth from lies and Harry wanted to have these people as allies. They didn't have to necessarily take part in the war although it would be great if they did. However, if he could deny both of these groups joining Voldemort, then that would be an even greater accomplishment in his eyes.

Harry decided to give them a good summary of who they were, what they were fighting for and what their final goals were. He told them some of his powers but was careful not to divulge everything. He told them that he had omitted some information to them at this point in time. Should they form an alliance they would get to know a lot more including whom he really was. Harry stressed that his identity would only be know to the leaders of the alliance, that way that was less chance for that critical information to leak out. Harry then explained the socio political structure of their group. He also explained how and why he was fighting the Ministry, Voldemort and Dumbledore. The last part he almost lost control of his aura, and it didn't go unnoticed. He finally explained his upcoming meeting with the Goblins in November. Harry left out a multitude of details, such as how he was going to overthrow the Wizengamot.

For their part Shauna and Tiara were completely shocked yet very pleased at the audacity of his plans and what he and his troops had already accomplished to date. Should this Sorcerer and his ideas succeed, it would allow their people to finally become equal partners in the magical world. This Scorpion Sorcerer didn't want to restructure the current system, he wanted to completely obliterate it and start from scratch. In the process he wanted every known magical race to become an integral part of the government and its underlying structures. This revolution for a lack of a better word had the potential to become the grandest social upheaval that the wizarding world had known for over two millennia.

Shauna had long ago learned how to recognize power and this Sorcerer had it in spades. She could literally feel his magical aura flooding her senses. Vampires were very sensitive to magic in general and she herself was an aura reader. She could tell that he was easily the equal to the current Dark Lord and the wizard known as Dumbledore.

This Scorpion Sorcerer had moved from inside the shadows. He held all the cards right now because his enemies didn't know who he was. The element of surprise was on his side. From where she stood, very soon this wizard would have a very powerful army at his side. If her people were to join, then the Goblins and then the Veelas, then nothing would stand in their way to reform the wizarding world. She had to get word to her father as soon as possible. A meeting between her father and this Sorcerer was paramount.

Shauna met the Veela's eyes and knew that she was thinking the same thing. This opportunity was far too great to pass up. Fate must be at work. How else had the random events of the last week culminated into where they were?

It was Shauna's turn to explain who she was and whom she represented. She explained the true history of the Vampires starting with Cain from the muggle bible. The real truth was that Cain had been a wizard 5000 years ago. He had been turned immortal by a failed experiment from a powerful dark wizard named Seth. In the process Cain had become so powerful that he had become immortal. The price for his immortality had been the constant need for blood. Eventually Cain met a witch named Lilith who helped him discover all of his new powers. Cain gave birth to the first, second and third generation of childer. He eventually founded the ancient city of Etosha where he created his thirteen grand childer.

Over three thousand years ago, Cain's childer eventually squabbled for power, and once again the mortals were used as pawns in their feuds. Finally the ancient city was thrown down - some say a natural disaster was the cause. Others say that a spurned childer's vengeful sorcery precipitated the cataclysm. Cain vanished into the unknown plotting his return. Up to now, he has not been heard from. The three Vampires of the Second Generation likewise disappeared into the mists of legend. But Cain's 13 grand childer, free from restraint, began breeding new vampires with abandon. The 13 vampires became known as the Antediluvians, and their childer, were created in there. The Antediluvians' magical gifts and curses thus were the clans formed.

Shauna then explained the socio political structure of their clans. She explained all of the different factions and went into some details of their powers. This included blood magic, soul magic, physical attributes, strengths and some weaknesses. She told them that her father was the notorious Nicadimus and that he was a Methuselah. He was an ancient Vampire who was over two thousand years old. He ruled the princes, who in turn ruled the territorial Camarilla.

Shauna then explained that the prince is often served by a council of advisors chosen from powerful elders of the various clans. These elders are collectively called Primogen. Though, in theory, a Prince's rule is absolute, a prince who fails to heed his Primogen often finds himself deposed or killed in short order. The Primogen are formidable forces in their own right, and ceaselessly intrigue against each other and the Prince.

Harry was by now absolutely fascinated by Shauna's explanation of her people. Harry could tell that the others thought so as well. The more he learned directly from the source the more he began to realize how much garbage his learning at Hogwarts had been. Binns with his constant fucking Goblin rebellions had probably caused numerous Wizards and Witches to commit suicide from sheer boredom. Why the hell couldn't' they bring in real teachers from the other races so that they could properly learn real wizarding history. Harry realized that it probably stemmed from the pureblood wizard and witches' fears that other races were more magical than they were.

Shauna seeing that she had a very captivated audience was emboldened and continued with her explanations. "The Elders are vampires who have existed for 300 or more years. They have mastered many magical powers during this time. Most Elders are deadly and formidable creatures. Elders tend to be scheming, ruthless and paranoid beings. They will do anything to hold onto their power structures, oppress or manipulate the younger upstart vampires, and destroy their rivals."

Shauna took a sip of brandy and continued, "Below the elders are the Ancillae. Ancillae are most often vampires who have lived from 100 to 300 years of unlife, though certain ambitious younglings may achieve the rank prematurely. As their name suggests, Ancillae often serve as aides and agents for Elders or the court. They usually play their own power-games as well, though these are of lesser consequence than the manipulations of the elders."

Seeing no interruptions, Shauna continued with the history lessons. "Lowest in rank are the Neonates. Those are Vampires who were created less than a century ago. Though occasionally cherished, scheming Elders often deploy Neonates as pawns. This callous treatment, combined with the value recent generations place on individuality, often causes Neonates to resent their Elders. After all, when one came of age during the Summer of Love, it is hard to empathize with a reactionary old tyrant who grew up amid feudal oaths and Divine Rights."

Harry was the first to speak and said, "What exactly is a Camarilla, and what clans make up its structure?"

Shauna was genuinely pleased by his interest and replied, "The Camarilla is a great sect of vampires that formed in the late medieval period. A vampire "United Nations" of sorts, it was formed to protect Vampires from the purges of the Inquisition, to uphold the Traditions of Cain, and to enforce the great Masquerade. Many Camarilla Vampires, remembering the nights of fire when Vampires were uprooted and destroyed, uphold the Masquerade fanatically. Camarilla vampires reject the idea of vampires as monstrous predators, instead preferring to live clandestinely among mortals and feed cautiously."

Seeing no interruption Shauna continued, "The Camarilla is the most populous sect, and (in theory) the most powerful. But it comprises seven clans of vampires, each with its own culture and agenda, and this renders it prone to discord. Ruled as it is by a fractious sort of parliamentarians, the Camarilla is slow to act and often indecisive in the face of threats. When it brings its combined might to bear, however, the Camarilla is virtually unstoppable."

Shauna finished her history lesson by saying, "The clans that make up the Camarilla are _Brujah_. They are a clan of violent, antiauthoritarian vampires espousing freedom from societal restrictions. The next clan is the _Gangrel_, which I am a part of. We are a clan of solitary, nomadic shape shifters who prefer the wilderness to the confines of the cities. The next clans are the _Malkavian_. They are a bizarre clan of lunatics whose members are infamous for their insanity - and insights. The next clan in the structure are the _Nosferatu_. They are a loathsome clan of deformed monsters who skulk in subterranean tunnels and sewers. Their ferocity and battle abilities however are unmatched anywhere in the Vampire world. Most other clans try to avoid them. The next clan is the _Toreador_. They are a clan of elegant, passionate vampires who patronize artists, musicians, actors and the like. The next clan in the cartel is the _Tremere_. They are a secretive, treacherous clan of vampire warlocks who practice blood magic. Finally the last clan is the _Ventrue_. They are a clan of aristocrats and nobles who consider it their duty to lead the Camarilla."

When she was done Harry found his voice and said, "Lady Shauna, this was the most amazing history lesson that I have ever had. In one night you have outshined six years of magical education from Hogwarts. This is again another great example of how badly run the current magical world is. I thank you once again for this unique opportunity to learn about your people. "

Shauna was pleased and answered back, "You are most welcome. It is refreshing indeed to find a group of wizards and witches who are willing to listen to other magical beings." Harry and the rest of his group inclined their heads as a show of respect to Shauna and Tiara.

Harry took the time to refill drinks and let Tiara explain her position. Just like Shauna, they all got a crash course on Veela social structures, politics, and etiquette. She described their current status and where some of the better-known clans were located. The biggest population was in France, then Russia, Germany and Italy.

By the time 10:30 pm rolled around they were all tired but very satisfied with their exchange of information. Harry then decided to introduce his diplomatic group by first name basis only. They were the one's who would handle the negotiations between their peoples and would arrange any further meetings. Shauna for her part told Harry to expect an invitation from her father, while Tiara said that she would consult with the Queen and arrange for a meeting to discuss a potential alliance.

With that done Harry said, "I will be back early tomorrow and create portkeys for your groups. Let me know where you want to go and I'll get you there. I will also give each of you two cell phones. They are a muggle invention that will allow you to contact me even in highly magical places. I have found them to be far superior to Owls. "

Harry then showed them how they worked and the code to reach him. When he was sure that they fully understood how to operate a cell phone, he told his people to retire for the evening. With that Harry escorted his wife to the floo and when she was gone he apparated to their home. By the time he reached the library at Potter castle, his brain was beginning to hurt from information overload.

Harry and Xiana went to bed, where his wife gave him the article from the Daily Prophet. When Harry looked at the picture, he burst out laughing. Harry had an inkling of who might have taken the pictures but he sure as hell was not going to say anything. While he was testing his new Raptor broom, he remembered seeing Colin Creevey taking pictures by the lake.

After some thought Harry then said, "I think you are right sweetheart. I think I'll go pay Madame Bones a little visit at the department of Magical Law Enforcement tomorrow afternoon. I think it's time for Dumbledore to lose his post on the Wizengamot. "

Xiana smiled and replied, "This will move up our time table, but like I said before this is far too big a plum to let go. Now how about we practice our Occlumency skills and then go to bed?"

Harry smiled and got himself into a lotus position like his wife and they both took half an hour to sort out the day's events and new knowledge. This was followed by a complete scan of the strength of their mental shields. After re-enforcing their metal defences, they both stripped bare and snuggled together. As much as they both wanted to make love, they were just too tired.

Harry spooned close to his wife with his chest against her back and proceeded to gently rub her tummy. Harry could now feel a slight bulge on her abdomen. He smiled at the new life that was growing inside her.

Harry pictured pouring all of his love for her and their unborn child. A warm white glow emanated from his hand, which created an incredible sense of well-being and protectiveness. Xiana suddenly felt so happy and contended. She felt a slight flutter in her tummy and smiled. Only her husband could make her feel this way. She pushed her self even tighter against his body. The warmth was intoxicating to both of them and soon they were asleep.

**Friday Morning October 17, 1997 **

Harry and Xiana woke up felling refreshed and ready for another day. Xiana still had some deadlines for this week's Discovery News Paper print out. Harry's biggest objective for the day was to meet Amelia Bones and arrange for Dumbledore to be summoned to a court hearing. It was time to start paying back the bastard for his past transgressions. Harry and Xiana had a very early breakfast and made their way back to the trunk manor. Once they got there they noticed that their guests were waiting for them.

Harry stepped up to both women and said, "Good morning Lady Shauna and Lady Tiara. I hope that you are feeling rested. I see that most of your people have recuperated well."

Shauna replied, "These fine facilities and your generous care have made for a quick recovery. I wish to thank you once more for all of your help. Had you not rescued us when you did, we would most likely have died. Hare are the coordinates to the Gangrel clan." Harry nodded at her and her clan member and told them to follow him to the portkey room.

Once there, Harry took out two doughnut shaped ropes, which he enlarged. He then took Shauna's coordinates and concentrated on the black crystal imbedded in the rope and programmed a voice activated neutrino signature portkey.

The ministry could never find his special brand of portkeys, since they had no means of detecting its particular energy signature. When his was done, Shauna told him that she would contact him very soon. She then called forth all of the other Vampires who thanked him in turn and grabbed hold of the rope. When they were all touching the rope, Harry told Shauna to tap the dark crystal with her finger and say freedom. She did as she was told and they were gone in an instant.

Tiara was next with her people. Harry took the coordinates from her and programmed the other portkey. When his was done, she told her people to hold on to the rope. She then told Harry that she would also contact him very soon.

With that, the Veelas portkeyed back to their home. Harry looked at his watch, and noticed that it was 7:30 a.m. He kissed his wife and apparated to Myrtle's bathroom and cast the appropriate concealment charms on his Basilisk robe. It would now look like any ordinary cloak to everybody else. Harry made his way to the great hall. As Harry walked into the great hall he carefully looked at the Slytherin table and noticed the smirks on Theo, Brianna and Blaise. Harry smirked back at them and made his way to the Gryffindor table. As Harry passed by the Ravenclaw table he noticed that Tonks was not there. He went to sit by Neville, Luna, and Ginny.

He noticed that whispers were erupting all over the hall and some people were even pointing at him. Harry didn't pay any attention to any of it. He supposed that he had not been going to the great hall very often lately. Harry also noticed the loathsome looks that Granger and Weasley were giving him.

He deigned a look at the chilli pepper and noticed that Ron was looking back at him and making a fist while slamming it against his hand. If he thought he was scarring him, he was more demented than he ever thought. Just to add water to the fire, Harry stopped in front of them and started gyrating his hips without saying a word. The whole hall erupted into laughter. Naturally, the chilli pepper lost it and was about to come across the table for him when the beaver stopped him cold. She in turn gave him a sneer worthy of Snape. Harry snickered at them and slowly made him way to Neville as if he didn't have a care in the world.

Harry made an effort to not look at his watch, but he knew that shit would hit the fan very soon. Let's see how Snape and Dumbledore handle their little victory about leaving death eaters in the school. Harry was brought out of his musing when he heard high-pitched screams coming from all around the hall. Harry needed to keep pretences up so he gave a couple of feeble screams. His troops noticed his lead and gave feeble screams as well, just to make it look like they were surprised. Blaise had warned the others about the little breakfast interruption. Many students were already losing their breakfast to the floor.

The heads of Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were perched on pikes, which were in turn planted in their chest cavity. The body acted as a pedestal of sorts. The eye sockets were empty except for puss like yellowish liquid, which was running down their cheeks. Their mouths were opened and a scorpion was tattooed to their foreheads. The upper part of their body was bare of any clothing thus showing the branded letters on their skin. The bodies looked lacerated and gaunt. Suddenly fiery letters began to appear in the air that read _**Death Eaters Beware. You will not escape the Scorpion Sorcerer's Wrath.**__**The Revolution Has Started.**_ The flames disappeared and a three dimensional picture of a large scorpion appeared in the air attacking with its tail.

The hall then erupted into complete pandemonium as everyone rushed for the doors. Harry took that time to look at the main table and noticed that all the teachers were as white as sheets. Dumbledore's face was all scrunched up and angry looking. His face looked like someone had just pissed in his porridge. Snape was almost milk white and was clutching his left arm. Harry couldn't have been happier. Let the bastard worry, he thought. Harry then glanced at the Slytherin table and noticed many sixth and seventh year students who were white as sheets. Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bullstrode were passed out, no doubt from the shock at seeing their future lords decapitated.

Albus finally found his voice and said, "All house prefects will lead their houses to the dormitories. Classes will resume after lunch. This will give the staff time to deal with this crisis. Now go in an orderly manor." Albus sank back in his chair with a thousand thoughts running through his head. Albus looked at Potter and found him giving him an innocent shrug. Albus narrowed his eyes but kept his face devoid of emotion. Albus got the distinct feeling that Potter knew what was going on. This Scorpion mess was spiralling out of control.

Harry finally got up and followed his year into the dormitory. This should be good he thought. This would be the first time he would be locked in a room with the traitors. Ginny and Neville would watch his back though.

Harry followed the others and until they reached the fat lady. He just crossed the threshold when he was confronted with Chilli Pepper and the Beaver. They had their wands out and had their eyes narrowed at him. Harry wandlessly cast a shield on himself pushed by them to go sit in his favorite chair when he heard _Petrificus-Totalis. _

Ron wanted nothing more then to get back at the bloody-boy-who-lived. He wanted to pound his face in and win one for once. He didn't care if he was attacking him in the back. He had utterly humiliated him and he would get his pound of salt. Ron smirked and cast his spell, serves the fool right for turning his back on a potential confrontation.

The spell hit Harry's shield but Ron's utter shock, rebounded back towards him. At this close range and not expecting a shield to be there, he didn't stand a chance as was petrified by his own spell. Hermione was about to cast a much more powerful spell to break his shield when Ginny beat her to the punch and cast _Expelliarmus _at her. Not expecting the attack from her rear, Hermione was blasted back against the wall with her wand sailing into Ginny's hand. Neville had his wand out, daring anyone to pull theirs out.

While Harry went to sit in his favorite chair, Ginny went and picked up her brother's wand. She then cast _Finite-Incantatum_ and Ron immediately raised himself to his feet and screamed, "You are nothing but a bloody traitor. Give me back my wand." He was screaming so hard that his spittle was flying in her face.

With a sneer on her face, she swiftly kicked him in the balls. He never saw the hit coming and dropped like a sack of potatoes. Ginny then grabbed him by the hair and said, "As far as I am concerned we are no longer family. You and your little sycophant girlfriend are all pissed off and humiliated and you blame Harry for it. However, let's set the record straight, you were the ones who went and attacked him on Dumbledore's orders no less. You are blind to what is really going on. That winkled ass, lemon drop sucking fool has so pulled the wool over your eyes that one thousand _Lumos _spells wouldn't penetrate the veil he has pulled over your 's funeral is this weekend, I highly recommend that you stay as far away from me as you can if you don't want to get castrated."

Harry heard Seamus, and Dean go white at the word castration. Well, Harry thought, this went better than he thought. Ginny and Neville came to sit by Harry as they discussed their upcoming class. They finally heard Ron weakly say, "This isn't over by a long shot." He went over and helped Hermione get off the floor. She was rubbing her head. They then made their way to the boy's dormitories.

Meanwhile Dumbledore had just entered his office when the head of Cornelius Fudge appeared in a roaring green flame calling his name. Albus came around his desk so that Fudge could see him and said, "I am rather busy at the moment Cornelius. What do you need?"

Fudge in a shaky voice replied, "It would seem that this Scorpion Sorcerer had been busy of late. The decapitated bodies of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy appeared in the Ministry cafeteria. There was a massage and a scorpion mark floating in the air." Fudge sounded like he was about to have a nervous breakdown. He kept muttering about having no other choice. Fudge found his voice again and added, "Just yesterday morning Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle Manor were utterly destroyed. It appears that I will have to give the Aurors authority to use the unforgivables."

Dumbledore frowned and replied, "Cornelius, let's not be hasty in our distress. I agree that we have a very evil wizard circumventing the law and killing people, but I believe we need to pull our resources and stop fighting each other. "

Fudge sneered at Dumbledore and said, "Why? So you can keep tabs on me. I know deep down you are vying for my job. I won't play your little games Dumbledore. I think the current level of cooperation is as much as I can handle from you. I was calling because I just received notice that the body of young Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle have been found in Hogwarts, is this true?"

Dumbledore sighed and replied, "I'm afraid that the news is true Cornelius. As for your job, you will recall that I turned it down which allowed you to step in at the time. I have never wanted that bloody job. Quit thinking about yourself for a moment and think about the wizarding world. I have to leave now, because there are preparations that I need to make on behalf of the deceased. "

By lunchtime, things had quiet down enough for everyone to return to class. Harry looked at his timetable and found that he had DADA. Well he thought this would be the ideal time to unnerve batboy even more. Harry made his way to class with five minutes to spare. Snape came billowing soon after that and slammed the door shut. He made his way to his desk and started roll call. He finally came to Harry and looked up to see that he was there. With a sneer on his face he moved on to the next person.

Snape told them to turn to page 287 of their book and study the incantation for the tight body shield. Harry took a look at it and immediately noticed how utterly fucking useless this shield would be in a real fight. For one thing the incantation was way too long. The power curve for this shield was way too pronounced for the effect that it gave. Harry started looking at other curses and shield in the book and found most of it to be utterly useless. Harry decided to relax and took out a set of Chinese dexterity balls. The balls made a slight tapping noise every now and then that seemed to cause people to turn around and look at him. Harry paid them no mind.

Towards the end of the class, Snape must have had enough when he bellowed, "Potter what do you think you are doing making these annoying sounds. You are just as annoying as your blasted father was. For some unknown reason, you don't seem to understand the word quiet."

At that moment the bell rang and Harry was about to walk out of the classroom when Snape sneered and said

"Oh no, you don't. Come here this instant you arrogant little twerp. What do you have in your hands?"

Harry looked into his hands and sneered back, "They are called Chinese dexterity balls, and they help me relax. Now if you don't mind keeping your overly large honker out of my business I have far better things to do then stand here talking with you professor Snivellus." He spat the last bit with pure venom.

By that time Snape's face had turned into a very interesting shade of puce and bellowed, "I will not be talked to this way by James Potter's spawn. 100 points will be taken from Gryffindor for your cheek, and your muggle balls will be confiscated." He said the last with a gleam of satisfaction.

Harry smirked and replied, "Very well. I can always get more of these. Come to think of it, they were a present." Harry walked to the front of the class and dropped the balls onto his desk. Snape ripped the balls from his desk to have a closer and found himself looking at a pair of silver gray eyeballs. His face suddenly turned white and dropped the balls back onto the desk as if they were contaminated. He knew those eyes very well. These were Draco's eyes.

Snape swirled onto Harry with his wand drawn and sneered, "Where did you get these. You will tell me right this second or you won't see your next birthday!" Harry had been ready for this and with amazing speed he snatched Snape's wand from his hand and threw it across the room. He then grabbed Snape by the throat in one hand and slammed the man as hard as he could against the wall and heard a satisfying crack.

Harry whispered softly so that only Snape could hear and said, "A friend of mine gave them to me. He particularly hates death eaters. Now that I think about it, those balls look an awful lot like little Draco pooh's eyeballs don't they? I really must thank my friend for all the extra effort he puts into his presents. Now listen very carefully. If you ever mess with me, my friends or revile my father in my presence again, I am going to lobotomize your ass. You may have been able to fool that senile old fucker of a headmaster and have somehow fooled his turkey club into accepting you. However, we both know that deep down you are nothing but a stinking coward of a death eater. Don't worry though, sometime soon you will be joining your death eater friends and sucking cock in hell I can promise you that Snivellus." Harry released Snape, and walked out of the classroom.


	16. Chapter 15 The End of an Era Part 1

**Chapter 15 "The End of An Era Part 1"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

_Hello Everyone. To all my faithful readers I am sorry it's taken me nearly two months to post, but year-end in engineering projects is the same as Christmas shopping during the last seven days. It's been nuts! This is why this is a 30 k+ chapter. _

_I wish I had more time to take part in Yahoo groups and all that but the truth is that my time has been quite limited this past six months. I hope the New Year brings some decent pace of work. _

_Now I need to vent off about some of the fan fiction I see out there. Folks I'm sorry but chapters that are less than 2000 words should not be considered chapters. Second thing is WHAT IS IT WITH THE SLASH!? I hope to God that Daniel Radcliff doesn't read FanFiction. Net. He would be wearing a chastity belt. It just seems that there is an awful lot of it out there. Especially MPREG, Basic biology should tell you it's pretty damn impossible, unless you are willing to put up with the worst case of constipation in the history of mankind. Enough said about that. _

_Also what's with the bloody I must abuse Harry by the Dursleys stories? He is a wizard who is supposed to be equal in power to Voldemort. Do you honestly think that someone who has the power to do accidental magic would let himself be beat up by some fat pig who can't even see himself pee. COME ON!_

_For those of you who still use stupid fourth year douche bag spells for their fights here is a link that translates English to Latin. USE IT and make your fights a little better. _

Harry is not Jesus Christ, he is a Soldier who has to kill Voldemort. IT IS OK TO KILL DEAT EATERS TOO GET IT!

_Oh yah, before I forget there is definite gore in this Story. YOU have been warned. All right On with the Show. Sorry about my rant but I had to get it off my chest._

Harry walked out of the classroom trying to control his anger. It would have been so easy to just grab the bloody bat and portkey him to his Lair and let the Weasleys take care of it. He had promised Bill that he would have free reign where Snape was concerned. If nothing else, he was doing it for Charlie. In the wizarding world there was nothing more sacred than blood ties.

The Weasleys on his side wanted to avenge their brother according to their code, and Harry would be damned if he would interfere with that. He knew damn well the feeling they were going through. In hindsight it might not have been the best strategy to attack his old potion master. The worst that could happen would be for Dumbledore to become even more suspicious of his ties with the Scorpion Sorcerer.

Harry walked to the third floor wing where they had met Fluffy back in his first year and found it to be empty. Harry apparated to Potter castle to his library and made his way to the safe where he kept all of his important papers. Blood wards and a slew of very nasty dark spells protected the safe itself. Currently only his wife and himself had access to it. Harry took his wedding ring and put its imprint against the obsidian panel, which had the matching depression to his ring. The moment his ring matched the depression, all the wards, and protection spells came down. He took out the original copy of his parents' will and his bank account transactions record and reactivated the wards.

Harry checked himself to make sure that he had his cloak and hood were properly fastened, and took out his Holly wand. If the idiot at the Ministry decided to confiscate his wand, he didn't want it to be his creations. When he was done checking himself, he pictured the statue of magical brethren at the entrance to the ministry building and apparated there.

Harry immediately found himself facing the statue and took stock of his surroundings. Harry turned towards the statue to take a closer look and sneered. All the other races were looking at some tall wizard and witch as if in awe. If those same magical creatures were here right now, they would probably blast the fucking piece of trash to pieces.

The wizarding world really thought that their shit smelled better then everyone else's he thought. Harry looked around once more and finding the coast clear, he took down his hood down and proceeded to the reception desk. Harry waited in line until his turn came was looking around when he saw a caricature of the Scorpion Sorcerer in poster form and a wanted ad below it. The ad said that the ministry would pay fifty thousand galleons for any information leading to the capture of the Scorpion Sorcerer. Harry smirked at the ad, nothing like being wanted, he thought.

Finally he made his way to the clerk. She looked fairly pretty with dark brown hair and light gray blue eyes. "Name and purpose for visiting the Ministry of Magic?"

Harry answered back, "Harry Potter here to see Amelia Bones from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Griselda Marchbanks of the Wizarding Examination Authority." Harry saw the woman look towards him and her eyebrows were nearly at the top of her scalp.

"Oh my God! I can't believe that I am seeing the Harry Potter." She kept stuttering. "Wait until my girlfriend hears about this, she is so going to freak." She was mumbling to herself at which point Harry had completely tuned her out.

After more mumbling, Harry having heard quite enough of the stupid worshipping act cleared his throat and said, "Excuse me! I really need to get going. Do you need anything else from me?"

The girl suddenly looked up and blushed furiously. She must have realized that she had been muttering out loud. Finally she found her voice and said, "Sorry Mr. Potter, I need you to leave your wand behind before proceeding inside the inner doors."

Harry smiled and handed over his holly wand. The clerk gave his wand a good look; much more then she should have and gave him two passes. Much to Harry's pleasure, she never bothered to check for any other wands. Harry attached the passes to the front of his cloak and proceeded towards a large map at the main entrance to the main door. He quickly located Amelia Bones' office and walked in.

Amelia was currently looking at some file folders on suspected death turned around to look at her board and crossed out Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. She looked more closely at her files and also crossed out Vincent Crabbe Jr, Gregory Goyle and Draco Malfoy names. She didn't even know that they had been death eaters until the mark was found on their bodies. She still shuddered at her memories of this morning's investigation. The sudden appearance of the Malfoys' mutilated bodies with the scorpion mark on their forehead had been a real wake up call.

She herself had mixed feelings about this Scorpion Sorcerer. From all accounts he was fighting Voldemort with a vengeance that the ministry could learn from. It was also very obvious that he was fighting Voldemort's minions with dark arts, which she wasn't very enthusiastic about. She could not deny its effectiveness however, and wondered if the ministry had boxed itself with their stupid regulations. In the end it wasn't the magic but the intent that mattered. She was brought out of her musing by the imposing figure that was marching towards her.

It soon became clear to her whom this imposing figure was. She was looking at none other than Harry Potter himself. Looking at his face, she instantly knew what was coming. She vividly remembered the events in August between Dumbledore and Potter. She had resigned from the order because of it. That event had caused her to really question Dumbledore's motives and character.

It seemed to her that Dumbledore was willing to sacrifice any of their most treasured laws for his so called greater good, which in reality were his own personal gains. She still had her copy of the Potter will that Harry had given them during the August had since checked the validity of Harry's claim, with some of her deep undercover agents working at careful analysis of the facts, she had been astounded at the depths of Dumbledore's crimes. The fact that Dumbledore had completely ignored the wishes of the blood parents was unthinkable. The wishes of the parents override any others.

Harry marched up to Amelia Bones and said, "Madame, could I take a few moments of your time and discuss some very important issues involving Albus Dumbledore."

Amelia looked into his glowing eyes and said, "What can I do for you Mr. Potter?"

"I would like to file a lawsuit against Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore has violated the Edict of 1124 as stipulated by Charlemagne and passed by the House of Lords concerning wizarding wills and titles. I also charge Dumbledore with failure of financial decree of 1491, paragraph 6, subsection E. Dumbledore wilfully withheld information on my true financial status and stole from my trust vault without my knowledge and forged my signature of said transaction. I also charge Dumbledore with intent to cause psychological and bodily harm to my person during my six years of education at Hogwarts." With that Harry pulled out several parchments with the official Gringotts seal on them. Harry also pulled out a vial of silvery liquid out of his pocket.

Harry continued, "As you can see, the first two accusations can be proven with these documents carrying the official Gringotts seal. Madame, if you have a pensieve, then my memories, which are contained in this vial will prove without a shadow of a doubt what Dumbledore had planned for me just recently. I am fed up with being the recipient of his constant manipulations in my life. It is my firm belief that this man has wielded power for far too long. Dumbledore needs to have his influence severely curtailed. Who really knows how many other people he has manipulated? The objective of my lawsuit if to have him removed as Chief Mugwump and from the Wizengamot altogether. His powers at Hogwarts should also be severely curtailed."

Amelia had expected some sort of grievance but nothing to this extent. It was now clearly evident that the breech between Potter and Dumbledore ran far deeper than she had ever expected. Her gut instinct screamed of ulterior motives, but she had no evidence to the contrary. She looked at Potter's piercing green eyes and said, "I believe in these two documents. Please give me a second to get a ministry pensieve to view these memories of yours. You do realize that what you are doing will create a big power vacuum that may very well favor Voldemort?"

"Madame, I firmly believe in your department's ability to screen all potential candidates when the time comes to find us a new Supreme Mugwump." Harry replied.

Amelia nodded and went to fetch the pensieve. She came back and had Harry pour his memories for viewing. The special ministry models were developed by the unspeakables and projected the memories like a three dimensional hologram. She looked towards Harry and said, "Mr. Potter, due to the charges being laid, and the position that this individual holds, it would be prudent for a senior ministry trustee to witness your memories. Do you agree with this suggestion?"

Harry thought about it for a moment and replied, "Very well, if he is trustworthy then I have no problem with it."

Amelia took her wand and sent a message charm toward the door behind her desk. Five minutes later, a tall blond haired gentleman walked through the doors and introduced himself as Sirius Goldstein. Amelia explained to him what was going on and he took out a notepad and waited for the memories to play out. Amelia then took her wand and touched four different runes and muttered some incantations and the memories started playing.

As they were viewing his memories Harry detailed the events as much as possible as they were playing out. He knew that she would spot several of his curses as dark or gray magic but he hoped his arguments would be enough to convince her that he needed to use this type of magic. When the memories were done, Amelia turned towards him with a frown on her head. Harry waited for her to say something.

Amelia had been stunned to realize the extent that the headmaster went into to disrupt Potter's life. Clearly there was a lot more going on at Hogwarts than anybody could have possibly conceived. She looked over at her deputy who seemed to have a permanent crease on his forehead. Finally Amelia cleared her throat and said, " Mr. Potter, I find myself shocked by these events and at the same time intrigued by your repertoire of spells. If I am not mistaken I can tell that some of them were dark magic. Would you mind commenting on your use of these spells?"

Harry immediately replied, "Madame Bones, the manipulations you have just seen have actually been going on since I first came to Hogwarts. Nearly every year I have been at Hogwarts my life has been in constant danger. Last school year after the DOM fiasco, I came to the firm belief that If I was to ever have a chance of defeating my enemies, then using the useless spells taught by the grossly incompetent teachers hired by Dumbledore to teach DADA classes would be no where near enough to protect me. As the muggles say "Know Thy Enemy". I have learned from my mistakes Madame Bones. Yes I was using gray magic, and could just as easily have used dark magic to achieve the same result. You will notice that I never killed anyone. Had they been death eaters, one of the spells I used would have hit them with steel balls instead of ice balls. I am no longer a wide-eyed easily impressed eleven year old boy. I have learned these past five years that magic is all about intent and of itself magic is neither light nor dark, only a tool."

Amelia looked deeply into his green orbs and slowly nodded. What Potter said, was no different then her own personal belief. It is true that Dumbledore has been throwing his weight far too much these past decades. She opened her bottom right drawer and pulled out a blue parchment. She wrote an official declaration and told Sirius to file the declaration and send one of the official ministry owls to Hogwarts to inform its headmaster that he would be appearing before the Wizengamot, and the ministry courts. The reason for court proceedings are due to his many violations of the following wizarding laws….etc The official court date is set for November 15.

Satisfied with his plan, Harry thanked Madame Bones and Sirius for their due diligence and left to find Griselda Marchbanks who had just been re-instated as the Head of Wizarding Examination Authority once the ministry high inquisitor had been sacked. Fudge, during the summer had been forced to admit that Voldemort was back. The press had completely ridiculed him for ignoring the warnings given to him a year ago by the boy-who-lived and the old coot. Harry walked down a large corridor until he saw the sign Wizarding Examination written in large gold letters. Harry walked into the door and immediately saw the old crone sitting at her desk.

Harry walked over and waited for her to acknowledge him. She was busy scribbling a note when she suddenly bellowed, "Well, what do you want sonny? Make it quick, at my age you never know if I'll kick the bucket right here and then."

Harry laughed and said, "I'm sorry to disturb you madam, but I would like to know the procedure for taking my NEWT early?"

She looked him in the eyes and instantly recognized the young man as Harry Potter. She finally said, "Well this is certainly not a request we get too often, however we do have provisions for such an eventuality. You must first fill out this application form, and then pay 200-galleons up front. That's why most people wait for school year to be over. The ministry pick up the tab you see. The reason for the fee is that the examiners are usually busy doing other ministry work during the regular year and early examinations fall under overtime work. If you can afford the fee it's no problem. "

Harry decided to make her think he was seriously thinking about it, just so she knew that he did not regard their time for him as something that was no big deal. After about a minute he said, "That's fine madam, I will pay the 200-galleons. It's very important for me to get my exams out of the way. My family portfolio requires me to finish school early. I have many businesses that need attending and remaining at Hogwarts is certainly not helping. When is my first exam?"

The old crone looked at several parchments and a calendar and started writing dates. When she was finished she handed him his exam schedule. Harry noticed that his first exam was Tuesday and he would have an exam every second day from after. 'Well that's not too bad,' he thought, there was at least a day in between for review.' Harry filled out his application form and paid the fee. He walked out of her office and made his way to the ministry apparition point walking, he was formulating his plans when heard his name being called in a whisper. Harry suddenly tensed and turned around slowly while pulling one of his stiletto daggers from his robe. Harry hissed and said, "Who are you?"

Harry suddenly felt a silencing ward forming and tensed even more. He noticed that some people passing by were taking notice. Harry relaxed a little and looked as if he was examining one of the paintings on the adjacent wall. Harry heard the gruff voice again and immediately recognized it as Moody's.

"That was a good recovery you just did there Potter. I thought for sure you were going to attack me. It's good to see you using your brain."

Harry narrowed his eyes and while faking examining the painting said, "How do I know you are the real Moody? What is the secret code that I gave you to contact him with the muggle cell phone?"

Moody replied, "You showed me how to use the _cellone_ and told me to type _Scorpio_."

Harry smiled and said, "That's a cell phone Moody."

"Yah, yah, I can never keep up with the blasted weird names muggles have for their contraptions. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I want in. That last job at Malfoy Manor clinched it for me. I also have some important information to pass along concerning Azkaban but not here."

Harry replied, "It's good to have you aboard Moody. You'll have to take a loyalty oath when you meet him. There is no negotiating where the oath is concerned."

"I don't have a problem with that. It shows the lad practices Constant Vigilance. A very noble trait if I do say so myself."

Harry nodded and took out a black bracelet. Harry looked around to make sure no one was close and pulled out his wand from his Basilisk holster and touched the bracelet. Harry concentrated on the coordinates and the bracelet glowed a deep navy blue. When he was done he gave the bracelet to Moody and told him that it was a specialized portkey and that it would activate for Monday afternoon at 3:00 pm.

Moody put the bracelet on his wand hand and left. Harry sheathed his wand and made his way back towards the reception desk to collect his wand. When he was done he made his way to the apparition point and went back to the Scorpion lair.

**Following DADA Class Earlier That Morning**

Severus was shaking with righteous anger. How dare that bastard spawn of Potter's threaten him? Severus had no doubt that the brat was into dark magic. He could sense it off him. Dark magic always left a certain type of aura. There had to be a way to use this against him. If he was honest with himself he would admit that the lad had shaken him. The callous way in which he was playing with Draco Malfoy's eyes was unsettling to say the least. Severus was getting close to the headmaster's office when he bumped into someone and tripped.

Sheeting with rage he pulled himself up and bellowed, " Watch what you are doing you stupid little sot!" Severus narrowed his eyes when he noticed who he was dealing with. With a smirk he said, "Well, well, well, if it isn't Longbottom and his little sot Miss Lovegood. I would have thought that five years of education at Hogwarts would have increased your I.Q beyond that of a house plant." The reaction Severus got was nothing like he expected.

With speed that was almost a match for Harry, Neville whipped out his wand and pushed it deep inside Snape's nostril and with pure venom in his voice hissed, "You can insult me all you want Snape, but if you ever disrespect Luna in front of me ever again I will make sure that your bat brains adorn the walls of Hogwarts permanently. You will apologize to Luna immediately or I will perform a tonsillectomy through your nostrils, which should provide enough payment for your cheek. Now, what's your choice?"

Luna was shocked yet pleased with the way Neville was protecting her honor. Neville had changed a lot under Harry's tutelage. Long gone was the meek and shy boy whom she had met in her first year at Hogwarts. Neville was now very powerful, confident, and one of Harry's top lieutenants. Neville would never again let anybody push him and he would defend his interest with extreme prejudice. Luna finally said, "It's ok Neville, it's not important."

Neville bellowed, " It's important to me Luna, no one disrespects you like he did. NO ONE!"

Luna with misty eyes rubbed her hand on his back. Luna had never had anybody fight for her like this until she met Neville and Harry. She felt so much love coming from Neville and it brought such warmth to her heart.

Luna looked into Neville's eyes with a dreamy smile on her face and said, "Professor Snape is obviously affected by a colony Bramble Benthams which must have taken residence in his prodigious nose. If you didn't know, they are closely related to Doxins but much smaller and produce a toxin that affects the frontal lobe of the brain and perpetually makes the victim an insufferable bastard."

Neville looked at Luna and was fighting real hard not to break into fits of laughter. She had managed to insult Snape while making it look like it wasn't his fault. God she could make him laugh no matter the situation.

Severus meanwhile was feeling mighty uncomfortable with the heat of Longbottom's wand in his nostril. He could feel the anger and power coming from the boy. Severus was seething on the inside but he was at a slight disadvantage at the moment. Severus turned his head towards the loon and with as much loathing as he could muster said, "Miss Lovegood, I apologize for my inappropriate words. Mr. Longbottom I will see you in detention."

Neville answered back, "I don't think so. If push comes to shove, I wonder what the board of governors would do if they found out how you treated females at Hogwarts."

Severus was once again on the defensive and seeing no way for retribution at the moment sneered and spat, "Get out of my face the both of you and watch your backs." Severus walked off and Neville was sure her heard Snape say Gryffindor assholes.

Severus was in such a fit or rage that he didn't notice he was standing in front of the Gargoyles. He took a deep breath to calm himself and finally looked up and said, "Acid Pops." Within seconds he was sitting in a chair facing the headmaster's desk.

Albus must have heard him come in because he came down from his suite and said, "Severus my boy, what can I do for you?"

Severus sneered, "I'm almost certain that Potter uses dark magic headmaster. I had a slight altercation of sorts with him this morning. In his usual arrogant self he threatened my life. In the process I found him playing with these." Severus dropped Draco's eyeballs on the headmaster's desk.

Severus noticing the frown on the headmaster's face continued, "He told me that they were a gift from the Scorpion Sorcerer. As you can imagine I was quite shaken to see my godson's eyeballs rolling on my desk. I'm convinced that Potter knows who the Scorpion Sorcerer is. We must find a way to get the information from him. I can't prove it but I also have this feeling that more then one student is associated with the dark wizard. Just a few minutes ago, I had an altercation with Mr. Longbottom, which resulted in Longbottom nearly cursing my nostrils to oblivion. This action is completely out of character for the little plant-loving coward. I'm afraid that this Scorpion Sorcerer is recruiting from your school headmaster."

Albus looked deeply into his potion master's eyes, and replied, "I have come to the same conclusion as you have Severus. However, as you well know all of my plans so far have met with complete failure. The fact that Harry is hardly at the castle makes it much more difficult for us to gain control over him. I exude tremendous control within the wall of the castle Severus, but when he is hardly here it is very hard to find out what he is up to. Perhaps it's time that we take the bull by the horns and get our hands dirty."

Severus gave the headmaster a feral smile and said, "Headmaster, I believe that a stay in the hospital for Mr. Potter would quite beneficial for us. I would give us the time needed to break into his memories don't you think? It's high time that the little bastard had his ego taken down several pegs. I feel it would be quite easy to engineer a duel with the boy. With my knowledge of the dark arts, I can injure the boy enough, which should cause an overly long convalescence on his part. With several mind-altering potions, I can speed up the time it takes to break his mental defences. With your powers of Legillimency, he will be no match. If he should become permanently injured during the duel, so much the better. He would have no other alternative but to turn towards us for protection. "

Albus looked into Severus' eyes and gave him a calculating smile. He analyzed the plan from different angles and figured it was a well thought out plan. It was even better for him as it posed relatively little risk to him, and by agreeing to Severus demands, this would only strengthen the spy's bond to him. Not to mention, that seeing the brat hurt would bring him great joy.

The little phony had cost him much these last three months. To add insult to injury, Albus would even volunteer to be Severus' second. This act alone was bound to scare the brat. He was renown to be the most powerful wizard on the planet after all. Albus hated to admit it, but the truth was that he had a large ego and was vain. It was a poor man indeed that couldn't admit to his own faults. Looking into Severus' expectant eyes he finally nodded and said, "My dear boy, I must say Salazar himself couldn't have done a better job of coming up with this plan. However, I must warn you that Potter seems to have some knowledge of the dark arts. He did take down a strike force of 12 DA students after all."

Severus smoothly countered, "Headmaster, a few weeks of dark arts training during summer doesn't equal years of training in the subject. Lets be honest, The DA leaders even with their Auror training, are nothing but whelps compared to trained death eaters. Believe me, Potter will be no match for me."

Albus analyzed his potions master very carefully and finally said, "To improve on your plan I will volunteer myself as your second." Albus noticed the almost orgasmic look on the potions masters face. Albus couldn't help thinking how easy it was to snare people with honey.

Albus then said, "When do you plan on engineering your confrontation with Potter?"

Severus thought about it for a moment and said, "From my sources I have learned that the Dark Lord is planning something big, so I'll most likely be very tied up next week, however the week after would be good. Potter will be having DADA then. Hopefully he'll show up for class this time around. His attendance had been most erratic headmaster. If he fails to show up for class, I'll make sure to get him by mid November."

Albus narrowed his eyebrows and replied, "Very well Severus, I leave it into your capable hands."

Severus took this has his dismissal and nodded to the headmaster and left. Albus watched his potion master leave and hoped that this time this plan would bear fruit.

_Unknown to Albus at the time he would come to see this as the official beginning of his downfall_

**Friday Afternoon Scorpion Lair**

Harry with his body magic in full swing was currently practicing his martial arts and sword technique with his old mentor Akima, Blaise and Remus. They were giving him a wicked workout, he had to admit. He was relishing the workout. Nothing like heavy physical exercise to drain away stress he thought. Harry saw Blaise move in with a sideswipe while Akima made a quick frontal thrust attack with his katana.

Harry parried Blaise and then dropped to the floor and made a backward roll to avoid Akima's downward thrust. He had evaded both strikes only to run almost at Remus, who had a downward strike incoming. Harry saw Remus strike coming for his face and barely had enough time to bring up his katana and parry the blow. Harry made another backward roll and crouched back on the balls of his soles, with his body magic at full power he was able to jump almost twenty feet in the air and land behind Blaise. Harry fired a stupefy spell through his sword and watched Blaise drop.

Akima and Remus were standing one hundred and eighty degrees apart with Harry in the middle. Harry suddenly relaxed and reached out with his magic. He brought out his aura reading capability and decided to wait for the first attack.

Remus was getting jumpy, and felt that Harry was about to attack at any second due to the fact that he felt Harry's magical probe. Remus took the initiative and brought his body magic to bear. That coupled with his werewolf attributes made him deadly strong and fast. He jumped forward with his sword in his left hand and his wand in his right hand. He thought he finally had Harry as he let off a dark curse, and approached him at frightening speed with a forward thrust of his katana.

The moment Akima saw Remus attack he decided to open up the second front. He brought his body magic to its full capacity which he knew was no where near Harry's level but was still more than adequate and decided to follow with a Samagachie feint and a Torano frontal attack.

Harry was at one with his mind, magic and body. He suddenly felt Remus and Akima breach his magical perimeter and based on what his magic told him he let his instincts take control. Just as the curse was about to hit, Harry dropped into a crouch position, which left Remus curse sailing overhead. The moment Remus landed on his feet with his sword thrust forward, Harry parried with a low-level roundhouse kick which, swept Remus' legs from under him and caused the werewolf to crash hard on his back and knock his breath out. Harry immediately cast a wandless stunner at him. With no time to react, Remus was knocked out.

After dispatching Remus, Harry had just enough time to feint to the left from his crouched position and avoid the frontal kick coming for his head, which Akima had just launched. Just as he feinted to the left, Akima immediately sent his sword in a forward attack. Harry saw the sword coming at him and brought his katana in a mantis parry, which assimilated Akima's attack and allowed him to use his katana and sweep his sword at Akima's legs.

Seeing Harry's riposte, Akima jumped back to avoid the hit. This proved to be the error that Harry had been looking for. Harry suddenly jumped forward, and with his body magic, he managed to propel himself five feet in the air and twisted his body in order to complete his aerial roundhouse kick. Harry managed to connect with Akima's head, which knocked him unconscious. When all of his opponents were taken out, Harry turned around to see all of his troops staring at him. With a slightly annoyed voice, Harry said, "As entertaining as this little display may seem, don't you all have duelling practice to be going on with?"

Everyone nodded and went back to work. Before everyone was back at it, Harry said, "Today is a good day to practice team duelling. I want to see one on two, one on three, one on four and then the gauntlet. I want you to also be practicing the dark arts from the lament scrolls and Necron's six volumes." Harry heard many grunts but everyone one got into it. Everybody in the lair suddenly went to duelling formation, which allowed Harry to wake up his comrades. The only people missing were Bill and Fleur.

Practice finally finished at around 5:00 pm. Harry wanted to relax for the weekend and spend as much quality time as he could with his wife. Harry knew that Bill and Fleur were searching for land sales close to where he was. He couldn't blame them. The area was absolutely beautiful. With their new financial muscle they should be able to buy a very nice piece of land close to the island of Tyree. Harry also knew that Neville and Luna were also looking for a nice plot of land close to where he was. Harry felt very happy about this. He considered his friends as an extended family of sorts. According to Luna they were to meet up with a sales agent within the hour. Harry told his council to relax for the weekend and that Monday they would be welcoming Mad Eye Moody into their ranks. At that last bit, Tonks rolled her eyes but managed to smirk at the same time.

Tonks couldn't help it and said, "Harry how in Merlin's name did you manage to get Moody on our team?" Harry could tell from her face that she was completely flabbergasted.

Harry smirked and said, "Let's just say that Moody is less than enthralled with the actions of our current ministry and the turkey club."

Every one who heard the comment broke out into laughter. Harry took part in many of the duels, providing the necessary muscle to make all of the participants put in their very best performance. Without the right motivation, it was natural for people to slack off. When they were done, Harry took a nice long soak in the mineral pool. When he was finished, he showered and made his way to the command center. He found Remus pouring over several maps and seemed to be writing a list of sorts.

Harry took his time and studied the map that Moony had punched up on the monitor dawned on him that he was looking at real estate registry of a place on the north of the Island of Tyree. Finally out of curiosity Harry said, "Remus, what are you doing?"

Remus turned around and with a sly grin said, "Well with my new found wealth, I thought that it would be nice to create Lupin Manor. I'm currently looking at a piece of land right on the ocean that's not too far from Potter castle. If it works out, I would like to build my new home there. I also want to surprise Tonks when the time is right. I love the proximity of the sea and being close to you. I hope you don't mind?"

Harry immediately replied, "God no Mooney. I would love to have you stay close. After all family is supposed to stay close together, right? I'm really happy that you finally found someone to share your life with. Believe me I know what's it's like to be alone. "

Remus winced at hearing Harry's words. Remus had a much better understanding of how hard Harry's life had been thus far. Poor Lily and James must be extremely bitter knowing the manipulations that their son has had to endure in his short life. Well enough dwelling in the past he thought. He looked at Harry and nodded at him. It was his way of letting Harry know that he understood without any pity. For one, Harry would be extremely pissed if he knew that pity was directed towards him.

Harry nodded at Remus and said, "Well, besides land hunting if you aren't busy you and Tonks can join Xiana and me for lunch tomorrow."

Remus then remembered something very important that he needed to tell Harry. Remus answered back, "I won't be able to make it. Yesterday I found out from one of my old friends from back home who also shares my little furry problem that for the first time in 500 years there is a worldwide gathering of the werewolf clan leaders out in the Scottish Highlands not to far from the Loch. This is also the first time in over two thousand years that the _Manitou _clan from North Western America will be there."

Harry frowned and replied, "What is so special about the _Manitou _clan?"

Remus answered back, "The _Manitou_ clan is the oldest werewolf clan in the world. Not much is known about them. The one thing that it known is that they have been around since before the last ice age. We do know that during the first war, Voldemort sent an emissary to that clan with an offer to make them his top servants if they agreed to join him. Well that didn't go to well with the clan elder and basically told Voldemort's emissary to take his offer and stick it up his ass. Voldemort was incensed and sent twenty of his best death eaters to wipe them out. "

"What happened?" Harry asked.

Remus continued, "Soon after they made contact with the clan, Voldemort lost contact with his team. Three weeks later a very large box appeared at Voldemort's lair. How they knew where to find him remained a mystery. However, the large box was made up of the body parts comprising the death eater attack team. Voldemort never bothered with the _Manitou _clan ever again. The _Lougarou, Ragorth, Sioban, Celthasi, and Kalaban_ clan will also be present. These make up the most powerful werewolf clans in Europe. I'll be going to get more information on why the clans are meeting. I'm almost sure that it's related to Voldemort somehow."

Harry sat back in his chair and tried to think of a reason why the entire werewolf clans were meeting. His logical mind began formulating strategies for each scenario that he came up with. Each of his solutions had strengths and weaknesses. One thing for certain, if the werewolf side with Voldemort then it's going to make life really difficult for all of them. Of course this might be the right time for a bold move. Harry was reminded of the famous French General _Napoleon Bonaparte_ and one of his most memorable quotes. When formulating stratagems for war, always remember _'Laudace, Laudace, Toujour Laudace'._

Harry finally looked at Remus and said, "Why don't we let the Scorpion Sorcerer take the initiative?"

Remus replied, "I'm listening."

"I would like them to see what the Scorpion Sorcerer is all about. I'll get dressed up and conjure some critters for visual effects. The Scorpion Sorcerer will then explain his vies and plans for the wizarding world in a very general way. If the clan members philosophically agree with his precepts then both sides should formally initiate contact for further discussions. This way it will look like the Scorpion Sorcerer knew of the clan gathering and you came and made the presentation to the clan members. What do you think?"

"Well, I'll give this to you Harry your plan is bold as hell. With werewolves it's best to be upfront and direct. They are not known for their cultured ways. It won't cost us anything by trying. For all we know they may not be here for Voldemort anyway. The gathering may be for an entirely different reason." Remus answered.

Harry said, "All right let's do this. Let me get my gear and call forth my pets."

Forty minutes later Harry was finished with his presentation to Remus. For his part Remus took out the fresh memory and deposited it in the pensieve. When that was done, Remus made sure to take all of his battle gear with him and hugged Harry before he left. Harry wished him good luck and told him to be extra careful. Harry then told Remus to just portkey out of there if he ran into trouble. Remus assured him that he would. Charlie's downfall was still very fresh in their minds.

Harry looked at his watch and noticed that it was nearly 7:30 pm, and decided to go home. He wanted to look over the scrolls and books from the Malfoy secret library. Harry pictured his bedroom at Potter castle and within seconds found himself by his wardrobe. Harry took his time and took off his battle robes and weapons. He looked in his wardrobe and took out a royal blue silk robe with black and gold Egyptian runes imprinted on it. When he was done getting himself comfortable he made his way down to the kitchen. When he got there he found Winky putting away a pile of groceries.

Winky was busy putting away the groceries when she felt her master enter the kitchen, she immediately stopped what she was doing and said, "Master Harry, you is back. How is your day be sir?"

Harry never could sneak up on his elves. He replied, "I am fine Winky. I was going to ask you if you have any left over supper, I'm starving."

Winky curtsied to Harry and said, "Winky is sorry but there is no left over master, but Winky will make fresh supper for master. Winky can have it ready within the hour is this ok?"

Harry smiled and replied, "That would be fine Winky. I'll be in the library. When it's ready just let me know."

Winky curtsied and said, "Winky will tell master when supper is ready."

Harry nodded and asked, "Winky is Xiana home yet?"

Winky answered, "Mistress is home master, and she is with her mom and her Brinni in the living room."

Harry furrowed his eyebrow wondering why his mother and sister in law were here at this time. Harry certainly didn't mind, they could drop in any time they wanted. Harry couldn't recall Xiana mentioning a visit so he just shrugged it off and made his way to the living room. As he got closer to the French doors separating the kitchen from the dining room and the living room he could hear Xiana sobbing. Harry immediately started thinking that someone had gotten hurt and quickly made his way to the living room. The moment his burst in, he saw his mother in law and Brianna trying to comfort Xiana. Harry burst into the living room and both Xenna and Brianna turned around to look at Harry.

The first thing that Harry noticed was Xiana's tear face and said, "What happened? Is everyone all right?" To his amazement Xiana stood up and bellowed, "How can anything be all right, if you don't get yourself killed, then those Vampire and Veela sluts are going to take you away from me!" She sobbed and took off running upstairs.

Harry stood there with his jaw hanging open and after a few minutes he managed to reign in his thoughts long enough to say, "What the hell is going on?" He was about to follow Xiana upstairs when he felt a hand on his forearm and he looked down to find that his Xenna had stopped him. With a very confused look on his face Harry looked up into her eyes pleading to understand what was wrong. He looked at Brianna who gave him a very sympathetic smile.

Finally Harry heard his mother in law telling him to sit down. Harry was very confused but he obeyed anyway. Xenna looked at him with a very sympathetic smile and finally said, "I know this must be very confusing to you Harry. I'm afraid that what you just witnessed is a consequence of her pregnancy. Harry, she is not thinking logically right now and she is scared. I'm afraid that she is a victim of what we women call a hormonal hurricane and it's messing her up. I beg of you to just be patient."

Harry in a confused state simply said, "I just want to help. I know I'm not very good with emotions, but I really want to understand why Xiana is so upset?"

Xenna sighed and answered back, "Harry, she is very stressed out and as a result of her condition her deep seated insecurities are surfacing. She is afraid that in the very near future you may be forced into accepting a marriage of convenience to satisfy some sort of treaty protocol, which would cause her to share you with someone that she truly hates."

Harry looked at his mother in law and then at Brianna and instinctively ran a hand though his black mane before bellowing, "NEVER! Never will I accept a treaty that compromises my beliefs. When I married Xiana I swore an oath to myself that I would protect her and stay faithful to her no matter what. If these other races can't understand my deep-seated beliefs then they can go to hell and to hell with their treaty. I love your daughter with all my heart and would die before betraying her."

Brianna with her voice breaking replied, "Harry we believe you with all of our hearts. I think that my sister simply needs to have you to herself for a little bit with no interference from the outside world. She is worried about the paper, about you battles, about her pregnancy. To make things worse she is imagining that the Vampires and Veelas are going to steal you away from her. Now all of these issues coupled with her hormones being all over the map have just overwhelmed her into thinking the worse. I think you know what you have to do. Mother and I will make sure that no one bothers you for the weekend. Just be there for her and she will come around. I can swear on it. "

Harry was struggling with all of his might to keep his emotions from running out of control. The thought of Xiana hurting emotionally was just too much for him. With his eyes misting he looked at Brianna and his mother in law and said, "I'll do whatever is needed to make her fears go away. She means everything to me. I can't defeat Voldemort without her." Harry looked at them both and simply nodded. He slowly got out of his seat and made his way upstairs.

Harry found his way to the master bedroom door and stopped. He didn't know what to say to Xiana to allay her fears. When it came to strong emotions, he always had a tough time dealing with them. From as far back as he could remember it had always been his gut reaction to just clam up and ride out the problem. It had been survival at the Dursleys' to just never bring your emotions to the surface. This was different. He was married and his wife was scared. It didn't matter that most of her fears were due to hormones. The fact was that in her mind her fears were very real. He decided to just let his instincts take over. Harry gently knocked on the door. Hearing no voices he slowly pushed the door open and saw his wife standing by the bay window looking out over the western grounds and the sea.

Harry smiled, when he needed to think, he always sat himself by that window. One of his work desks was just to the right of the bay window. For some reason, the sea always managed to calm and refresh his mind. He wondered how many of his ancestors had stood by that same window admiring the same sight. He noticed that his wife had her arms around her self and was quietly sobbing. Harry made his way to her and gently put a hand on her shoulder.

She didn't knock his hand off but instead brought her right hand to his and gave it a squeeze. Putting his fear of rejection out of his mind, Harry took his hand off and gently brought his arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head.

Her hair smelled like fresh strawberry. She leaned into him and he complied by tightening his hold on her. Both of them stayed like that for quite a while. It was now pitch black outside but they could make out the reflection of the moon on the sea. The sky was clear and Harry instinctively looked towards the constellation Canis Major. He found the star Sirius burning brightly. Harry wondered what his Godfather was doing in the other realm. Hopefully, he was with his mom and dad causing an unbelievable amount of mischief.

Xiana for her part felt content to just have her husband's strong arms around her. She needed to spend more time with Harry. Due to their insane schedule they could rarely let their hair down. That meeting with the Vampires and the Veelas had unnerved her more than she realized. She was genuinely scared that she would have to share her husband with some other woman due to treaties. She couldn't understand why the wizarding world used women as bloody bargaining chips for just about everything.

She finally found her voice and whispered, "I'm sorry love. I'm just being stupid. My hormones aren't helping my head any. I am trying to be strong for you, but I'm also scared and jealous that I am going to have to share you with some Vampire or Veela strumpet in order to secure treaties. You would think that being brought up in our world since birth I would know better, but it seems that my head and my heart aren't exactly on the same wavelength these days. I guess that with all the fighting that has been going on lately, I keep seeing you go down in battle and leaving me alone to raise our children."

Harry swallowed hard and replied, "Babe, you will not be sharing me with any other woman I swear this on my magic. I love you and only you. I have made my commitment to you in the eyes of nature herself. You are all that I have ever wanted or will ever want in a wife. I am resolute in my beliefs. If these allies don't want to acknowledge my own beliefs then I want nothing to do with them." Harry looked into her eyes and he noticed her nodding at him to continue.

Harry whispered, "As for dying? You know that I can't guarantee that I won't die in this war. After all we are at war and anything can happen. However, I want you to know that with you at my side I don't see how I can lose. I am no longer a stupid little Gryffindor golden boy charging in hoping that the fates will smile kindly on me. My Slytherin side is fully awake and in charge, thank Merlin. You know I am doing everything in my power to keep us safe. I honestly think that with training and planning we have the winning combination to survive this war. I haven't let our victories go to our heads, babe. Despite our triumphs to date, Voldemort remains a very powerful and cunning wizard, and I don't plan on letting our collective guards down until he is gone once and for all. This also goes for Dumbledore. They will both regret ever tangling with us."

She turned around to face him and gave him a passionate kiss. Harry then held her and made small circles on her back. This always seemed to soothe her. Xiana rested her head on his chest and said, "I love you so much Harry."

Harry lifted her chin to meet his eyes and gave her a passionate kiss. When he ran out of breath he pulled back and replied, "I hope you know I love you more than anything in this world, babe. How about we have a nice candle lit supper in our room tonight?"

She wiped away her tears said, "I think that would be great." Harry nodded at her and went into the hallway and then called out, "Winky?"

Winky immediately popped to him and Harry got down on his knee and told her that Xiana would be joining him for supper in their bedroom. Harry then asked her to find Dobby and whispered instructions into her ears. She blushed and told him she was going to tell Dobby to get to it right away or she would scold him severely. Harry smiled at her and went back into the master bedroom.

Within half an hour his workroom had been transfigured into a beautiful dining table for two with red candles lighting the room. Harry took Xiana by the hand and let her to one of the plush chairs. He seated himself and within minutes the table was filled with braised lamb, black currant jelly, couscous, spinach salad, chilled fresh apple juice and chocolate moose cake. They took their time and talked about everything that has been going on these last two weeks. Harry asked her about her latest articles and they talked about Neville and Luna, Bill and Fleur, Remus and Tonks and by the time they were done talking they were both laughing hysterically.

Finally Xiana looked deep into her husband's emerald pools and smiled. She finally collected her thoughts and said, "Thank you love. I really needed this."

Harry looked back and smirked. He took her hand and replied, "You don't think that this is the end of our night, do you?"

She gave him a mischievous smile and said, "What do you have in mind?"

Harry took her hand and guided his wife to her feet. He then led her towards the master bathroom. He opened the door and led her in. Upon entering the bathroom she gasped. Their large Jacuzzi whirlpool tub had beautiful lily pads floating and the scent coming from the room was sublime. There were hints of tropical flowers and passion fruit. The room was illuminated with floating black candles. The roof was charmed to allow the night sky to be seen.

The moon was almost full. There were silk robes hanging on the back wall. There were bowls of strawberry, passion fruit, and chocolate lying by the edge of the tub. Throughout the room there were little islands filled with tropical plants. In the background she could hear classical music playing. Xiana immediately recognized the music as one of her favorite pieces. It was Chopin Nocturnes in F playing. Xiana closed her eyes and felt like crying. She couldn't believe that Harry had arranged all of this for her.

She let out a small sob and hugged the stuffing out of him. Harry kissed her forehead and then pulled back and took off his clothes. He then looked into her eyes and slowly disrobed her. As the robe fell off her shoulders he marvelled at her beautiful body. She looked like a goddess in his eyes. Harry could clearly see the start of her bulging tummy.

Finally unable to contain his emotions he said, "I hope you know that you are the most intelligent and beautiful woman that I have ever met. I love you with all my heart." Harry passionately kissed her and led her into the tub. The bubbling swirling water felt wonderful. He took a bottle of scented oil and began massaging her back. Harry took his time. He felt his stress starting to bleed off. When he was done she did the same to him. He then took the scented oil and began massaging her front. He gently caressed her nipples, which were rock hard by then. He could hear her whimper with lust.

Harry moved behind her and pulled Xiana's back towards his chest. He then began kissing the nape of her neck while gently caressing her nipples. For her part Xiana felt a tremendous heat build in her region. Her vagina felt as if it were on fire. She kept moaning at the wonderful pleasures that Harry was giving her. Harry then took his left hand and wandlessly _Accio'_d one of the plush towels. He then laid it on the landing just at the entrance to the tub. He again cast two different cushioning charms on the towels and then lifted his wife in his arms.

Xiana by then was savagely aroused. She felt Harry picking her up but didn't care. Harry laid her down on the towels and began caressing her tummy while sucking on her nipples. Harry started kissing her tummy and slowly made his way towards the Garden of Eden. Once Harry had reached his goal he parted her labia and ran his tongue from her entrance to her most sensitive region. He suckled on her nerve center bringing gasps and waves of pleasure to her. Harry could taste his wife's hot juices and kept coming for more. Harry took his middle finger and gently entered her. Soon he was stroking Xiana back and forth while licking her nerve center. Suddenly Xiana cried and Harry could feel her muscles tighten around his finger.

Harry raised himself on his knees and spread Xiana's legs apart. Harry took the head of his erection and positioned it at Xiana's entrance. He heard her gasp and then gently pushed himself into her. Harry began stroking back and forth with his hips. Harry parted her labia with his fingers and started running small circles around her nerve center with his thumb. Harry quickened his pace then took his other thumb to rub her hardened nipples.

For her part Xiana was in ecstasy. She could feel her husband's erection stroking inside her. The pleasure he was giving her was surreal. She started arching her back and willing her hips to meet his strong stokes. Her fingers were digging into his thighs. She was moaning and gasping and finally, she couldn't hold on anymore and exhaled loudly as she came. Within seconds, she felt Harry's rhythmic release. She could feel the sensual release of his seed inside her. She let the waves of pleasure pass through her body. She felt all of her stress bleed away and turn to ash. She looked up at the ceiling to see the moon rays reflecting a silvery glow on her husband's back.

She smiled in content. She felt Harry slowly pull out and he picked her up and brought her back into the Whirlpool tub. They spent another hour in the tub eating fruits talking and laughing. When they were done, Harry took her hand and pulled her out of the tub and cast a drying charm on them. He then robed her and made their way to the bay window. They both looked at the moon reflecting on the sea and after a while they went to bed. They were both naked and Harry grabbed her by her waist and pulled her against his chest. Xiana rested her head on his broad chest and fell into a very peaceful sleep.

**Saturday Morning October 18**

Michael and Blaise portkeyed to Potter castle on the Northern terrace close to the lake. Michael and Blaise were walking along the stone path when they noticed two people on brooms flying at insane speed and doing acrobatic manoeuvres that would have him chucking his breakfast. Hi could see Harry's owl Hedwig flying with them. She seemed to be having a grand old time. Michael looked at his son, but unlike him he seemed enraptured with their flying. Must be a youth thing, he thought. They finally reached the front door and made their way to the parlor. Michael looked up and saw his youngest daughter and wife walk up to them.

Michael walked up to his wife and gave her a quick kiss. He then said, "I need to speak to Harry, do you know where they are?"

Xenna replied, "Yes, Harry and Xiana are flying on their new brooms. I am sorry love but you will have to wait until Monday morning like everyone else to talk to Harry."

Michael furrowed his brows and said, "Why?"

"Your daughter needs some time alone with her husband. Xiana had a bit of a breakdown yesterday. Her pregnancy, the war, the paper, the long hours away from Harry and everything else in between finally got to her. She needs quality time with Harry and I'll bloody make sure she gets it. Short of an impending disaster nobody is going to be bothering my daughter and son in law this weekend. Do I make myself clear?" Xenna replied.

Michael just nodded and finally said, "No problems dear. I can certainly wait until Monday to meet Harry. Well since we are here I'm sure Blaise like me would love a cup of coffee. "

His wife was gentle and went with the flow most of the time. However, when she got serious about something it was better get out of her way. Now, if she managed to get pissed off, it was much safer to hightail out of her line of sight. When she got pissed, she was down right scary. That was one of the many things his daughters had inherited from their mother.

They all made themselves comfortable and had coffee and scones. They all caught up on the latest gossip and what Xiana and Harry were up to. It turns out that Michael wasn't too crazy about having his eldest pregnant daughter doing aerial acrobatics, but it seemed that she had arm twisted Harry into doing it. His eldest had always been a firecracker. They talked about the impending lawsuit that Harry had filed against Dumbledore and how they were going to bring the dissident Wizengamot members into their camps.

Michael, Brianna and Blaise left shortly after they were done. Xenna stayed to mind the fort.

_**11:00 AM Saturday Morning Weasley Family Plot**_

All of the Weasley clan was gathered around Charlie's coffin waiting for the elder to finish reciting the wizard burial rites. Muggle and wizard funerals were done very differently. The tombstone of the fallen had for example a charm that allowed a three dimensional image of the person to float above the tombstone. That morning however a stranger could have cut the tension in the air with a knife.

On one side of the coffin stood Molly, Arthur, Percy, Ron and Hermione. On the other side stood Bill, Fleur, Fred, George and Ginny. Looking at Molly Weasley one could tell that she was preparing another rant. With tears in her eyes she was eyeing her eldest son Bill and her supposed daughter in law. She kept wailing about how her poor Charlie had killed and that his soul was now dammed. Bill himself was building a head of steam that could power a muggle ship across the Atlantic. Bill had long ago understood that his parents were somewhat gullible but for the woman to berate her dead son because he had killed in the line of defence was just too fucking much. She kept ranting on how the great Albus Dumbledore had always said that there was always an alternative to killing someone.

For his part Arthur had his eyes narrowed at the twins and his daughter. They were dressed to the nines and Arthur felt like they were making a statement against him. This got him thinking as to where they got the money for the duds. He had always been a bit sensitive when it came to money issues but for his own children to make that type of affirmation cut him to the bone. Ron and Hermione kept glaring at Ginny. Ron for himself seemed wary of Percy. They had already gotten into some nasty arguments to the point where wands had been drawn. It had taken both Arthur and Molly to prevent and all out cursing war.

For her part, Ginny was not even paying attention to the loser branch of her family. She had tears running down her cheek and kept thinking about Charlie and the bastard that had been responsible for his death. Since discovering that Snape had been responsible for her brother's death, she had spent a lot of time thinking about the best way of torturing the bastard. She had many ideas but nothing concrete yet.

Harry had given her a lot of ideas that involved potions in one form or another. She thought that it was quite fitting that the bastard should suffer under his precious potions. Besides Snape, the other two people that she could not stand anymore were Granger and Ron. To her they were the biggest bunch of narrow-minded hypocrites that she had ever come across. The other person she could barely stand was her mother. The insufferable gullible woman was driving her to insanity. Ron and Granger had ratted her out about her relationship with Blaise and her mother had immediately labelled him a death eater in training.

Ginny had asked her mother about proof, but all she had for proof was based on a report from Dumbledore, which stated that the family must be dark because they had refused the old man in joining his precious order. Ginny had countered by telling her that Order of the Phoenix was nothing but a bunch of cowardly sycophants that bowed to the headmasters every whim. She told her that was the reason that Blaise parents had never joined Dumbledore.

Her mother had slapped her, which had prompted her to slap her mother back to her mother's utter shock. She had then screeched at her for daring to hit her and that now she fully believed Ron's narrative on what was going on at Hogwarts. She had then told Ginny that she was to quit seeing Blaise immediately. Ginny had told her that she could take her order and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine. Ginny then told her mother that she would not be welcome to see her grand children.

This had set both her father and her mother into rants. Her mother had then called her a slut. With tears in her eyes she had fled to her room. By then Bill and the twins were furious at their parents and had started a major row with them. Their father wanted to know where they had gotten the nice clothes. They had told him that it was none of his business. Molly had gotten into the fray and accused them of being nothing but little ingrates just like the Potter brat.

That last slander had finally done it for Bill and the twins and they had laid into their parents to the point of accusing them of being Dumbledore's stooge. Ron had accused them of being Potter's pets and that they were a disgrace to the Weasley clan. Hermione kept saying that Harry would be the next Dark Lord. She told them that Harry delving into the dark arts was the only way he could have beaten her and Ron. The twins replied that a drunken garden Gnome could beat them in a duel blindfolded. They called Hermione the Beaver with no power.

They then told Ron that he was barely above a squib and that he should have been a wet spot on their mother's sheets. This had caused Arthur to pull his wand to hex the twins but they had been faster and had petrified their father. Molly had in turn cast a cutting hex at both of them, which had completely enraged the twins. Bill had finally cast a full body bind on his mother who kept screeching bloody murder. To say that the Weasley clan was fractionated was an understatement.

What hurt Bill the worst was the contempt that his parents had towards Fleur. Bill finally understood that his parents were part of the old world that Harry had been talking about. Bill had now seen it first hand. It was no wonder their world was so fucked up. Bill realized that he would be breaking all ties to his parents, Ron, and Percy. The philosophical divide between them was too great now. Bill had looked into the twins' eyes and Ginny's and realized that they had come to the same conclusion he had.

Bill could see the hurt in Ginny's eyes where their parents were concerned. He would have to talk to Blaise to make him realize what Ginny had given up for him. Bill also realized the depth of Dumbledore's brainwashing. He had to hand it to the man, he sure knew how to conquer and divide. His parents simply couldn't see that they were his pawns and nothing more. If Dumbledore was such a good friend of the family and if his Phoenix members meant so much to him, why was him absent at Charlie's funeral. He had tried explaining it to them but they refused to understand. His parents kept making excuses for the man.

Finally Bill brought his head up just as Charlie's casket was lowered into the hole. Bill let a tear flow down his cheek one more time. Ginny was crying and was being held by the twins. Once the coffin was lowered, each member picked a clump of dirt and threw it at the casket. When they were done, both groups looked at each other without saying a word. Bill simply sneered and grabbing his wife's hand he turned around and walked away. The twins and Ginny followed suit. Ginny could hear her mother ordering her to stay behind. Ginny didn't care anymore. She was cutting her ties and would follow her heart. The second war had finally taken its toll on the Weasley clan.

_**October 18, Saturday Afternoon Ministry of Magic**_

Minister Fudge was sitting at the head of the international conference. He was talking to Claus Rinhaus of the Belarus consortium. Sitting next to him were the other thirteen members of the European wizarding governments. Like most governments in their century, dangerous criminals were difficult to handle. Wizarding prisons were very expensive to their respective governments.

In fact, maintaining a wizarding prison and its legal system easily accounted for nearly forty percent of the ministry budgets. It was estimated that most prisoners cost on average 3 thousand galleons per person per year. Most of these countries had laws that tied their hands when dealing with their criminals. Most countries banned execution, which included England. Unlike England, no other wizarding country possessed an isolated place such as Azkaban to house its prisoners. Even with the Dementors gone, Azkaban remained the most secure high security prison in all of Europe.

Cornelius Fudge had gotten the idea that England could offer its facilities to the other wizarding countries to house its most undesirable elements in Azkaban for a percentage of their ministry budgets. The amount would be much lower then what they were currently dishing out to house their criminals. Most of these countries had readily jumped at the opportunity to rid themselves of their less desirable elements.

Many of these so-called criminals not only included dangerous wizards and witches, but also very high-ranking Vampires, and Werewolves. Looking at the figures in front of him, Fudge figured that he could add an extra 500 million galleons to his coffers. The deal as he now called it would go a long way in shoring up his dwindling support. He would show them how competent of a minister he was.

With this little deal he mused, he would be able to lower taxes, which every one wants, he thought. Now he would have to hire more Aurors to help manage the increased criminal population. These were all minor details as far as he was concerned. Now that Voldemort had taken the Dementors back and broken out his inner circle, he no longer had a reason for breaking into Azkaban.

Cornelius Fudge would be remembered as the man who finally balanced the books. With the extra money influx which would be coming in, he could drop his efforts at bringing the Goblins to his side. He had always hated dealing with the ghastly little bastards. He was brought out of his musing by the Greek minister.

"Minister Fudge, I have carefully reviewed the contract document and my only real concerns are the security measures that you outlined in this document. I don't know about my other colleagues but I feel that housing so many dangerous criminals in one central location will require a lot more security than a beefed up Auror division." Minister Pastoulie said.

Cornelius could hear the other ministers agreeing with Pastoulie and decided to ask for their advice and said, "Gentlemen, if I can have your attention please. I am willing to listen to any suggestions that you may have. I understand your need for extra security I assure you that my goal is the same as yours. Does anyone have any idea?"

Finally the Romanian Minister Anatoly Varnesqu said, "Why don't you make use of Dragons and cast some dark wards? We can easily give you upwards of twenty dragons. The bloody beasts are breeding out of control anyway. I can have some Ridgebacks, Horntails, and Hybridian blacks, which I believe are native to your Scotland anyway at Azkaban within the week. I'll also loan you some of our keepers and trainers to help train English wizards. "

Minister Badru from Egypt then added, "My country can help you strengthen the wards around you prison. Our top curse breaker is also well versed in casting ancient Egyptian wards. What say you?"

Cornelius made a show of thinking about it for a moment and agreed to their proposal. Azkaban would become even mightier than it already was. He finally said, "I agree to you proposal. I'll have to go before the Wizengamot and repeal some of our more backward laws, but I don't see that as an issue, especially when they see the benefits in return. Now if there are no objections I suggest we sign and adjourn this meeting. Once we have instituted the security measures and moved the prisoners, I'll release the information to the Daily Prophet. At our current timeline, I estimate that by the end of November everything should be in place. "

With the signatures out of the way, Cornelius called on his lackey Seymour Whitethorn to make copies of the documents. With the legalities out of the way, Cornelius shook hands with the other ministers and he was off to the records department. Unknown to Cornelius at the time, future wizards, and witches of Great Britain would come to know him as the most incompetent minister to ever rule in all of British wizarding history.

_**October 18, Romania in Negoiu mountains in the Southern Carpathian Region**_

High in Negoiu Mountain stood a very ancient and gothic looking castle. The castle itself was made of black polished granite. Its black spires and foreboding gargoyles gave it a cold and eerie feeling. Shauna of the Grangel clan loved her home and was glad to be out of the blasted blizzard, which so often hit this region of the world. No one could apparate into their castle due to extensive blood wards on the castle and the grounds. One had to walk a thousand feet up the black granite steps to reach the entrance to the castle. Of course, all along the path Shauna could smell the guards. Her keen sense of smell was one of the traits passed down to her clan.

From the smell she could tell that the Nosferatu were guards this month. They were gruesome and lethal. No one else matched their bloodlust. Even to her they were frightening of course being the daughter of Nicademus they would never dare lay a hand on her. She looked up to see the last of the demon gargoyles pass her by and she soon found herself in front of the castle doors. She took the demon style knocker and knocked seven times.

She heard a voice bellow, "Who dares disturb the Prince gathering?"

Shauna recognized the voice of Leander of the Ventrue. Typical of his clan he was a pompous ass who thought it was his clan's birthright to rule the Camarilla. Of course, everyone in their world knew it was the Methuselah who ruled their world. Shauna answered, "It is I, Shauna of the Grangel clan, daughter of Necadimus."

She heard the large door open up to reveal the very aristocratic face of Leander. He looked her up and down and finally said, "It is good to see that you are alive my lady. I have heard tales that your little adventure on that blasted Isle met with some difficulty? There are rumors circulating that your group was rescued by a very interesting wizard."

Shauna would have to search and punish those members of her group that had loose tongues. She knew that it would do no good. First allegiance was to the Camarilla, then their respective clans and then to the leader, unless you were talking about the Methuselah. Finally, Shauna gave him a very predatory smile and replied, "My, my, aren't we inquisitive? You know what they say about loose tongues." She then let out a deep feral growl and showed her fangs.

Leander took a step back and simply creased his eyebrows. He slowly backed away and said, "I mean no disrespect my lady. I am just eager for news of the outside. The inner politics of the Camarilla can become quite stale and boring after a fashion. I guess my own desire for action has made me a bit forward. I beg my lady's forgiveness for my actions."

Shauna looked into Leander's eyes to see if she could detect any deceit, but found none and replied, "Very well, all is forgiven. See that it does not happen again. I can tell you that there is a lot of truth to the rumors you have heard. The Scorpion Sorcerer is no myth that much I can tell you."

Shauna walked past Leander and she could hear him muttering to himself about interesting development. If only he knew, she thought. She made her way to the great staircase, admiring all of the ancient relics, which adorned the castle. There were Roman soldier uniforms from centurion to legionnaire. She noticed the glass case that contained the writings of Fluvius Cammilus. He had been a Roman military commander and inventor. He had also been one of her father's best friends 2300 years ago. Her father had kept all of his works and personal possessions.

Walking further she smiled as she noticed the Alexander the Great shrine. On display were his personal weapons, writings, and armor. Her own father revered Alexander the Great. He was perhaps one of the greatest military genii of all times. Her father had personally decapitated a member of the Ventrue clan when he had dared badmouth Alexander the Great. The various texts and writings from the different shrines would be priceless in the muggle world.

She finally reached the great spiral case and soon found herself walking the eastern hallway. She finally reached the portrait of her mother Lariana and entered the room adjacent to the portrait. She found her father sitting by the fire drinking blood from a Venetian wine glass. Her father adored the quality and artistic finesse of Venetian crystal.

She approached her father and kneeled before him. He took his hand and placed it on her head. When he was done she looked into his glowing crimson eyes. She couldn't help the shiver that coursed though her. Her father radiated power. The camarilla Princes feared her father's power. His strength, speed and cunning were unmatched except for the older Methuselah. Her father Nicademus had once told her that the only person he ever feared was Cain himself.

Her father was the first to speak, "I am glad to see you unharmed, daughter. It has come to my attention that you were attacked and captured by that British Dark Lord whom they call Voldemort. Tell me of your adventure. "

Shauna began describing her tale. She explained her meeting with Lucius Malfoy, and his inner circle of friends. He had some of the local Vampires, but soon she had realized that they were not of the Camarilla. She then explained the fight that had occurred and how the Dark Wizard Lord Voldemort had entered the fight and began subduing her pact using very obscure magic. She explained her capture and their torture. Describing her torture and that of her brothers, she noticed her father's eyes becoming pitch black. She then described her rescue by the Scorpion Sorcerer.

She explained his destruction of Malfoy Manor. Shauna then gave her father a full description of the help that the Scorpion Sorcerer gave her team. She gave her father a full debrief of the information session that she had shared with the Scorpion Sorcerer. She explained that he was fighting their ministry and the Dark Lord at the same time. She told him of the power he seemed to posses. She told him about the twin Scorpions and the dark Phoenix markings on the back of his battle robes.

Shauna was dismayed to see her father react so forcefully at her description of the markings. She noticed her father staring out at the fireplace and noticed his eyes glazing over. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. Finally he broke his silence and told her that the last time he had seen that particular mark had been over two millennia ago. He finally told her of the ancient priest of Amunaptra in ancient Egypt and the power that they wielded. He described witnessing first hand the carnage that the ancient priest could wield. During the great invasion of Egypt the Scorpion order had simply vanished overnight.

Finally, Nicademus looked at his daughter and said, "We are entering dark times Shauna. Our spies tell me that the Sabbat are preparing for a major offensive soon. Methuselah Xanthos of Lasombra clan of the Sabbat is preparing to join this Voldemort. It seems you have found a very powerful Sorcerer to fight with us. I need to see him personally and talk with him. If he is what I think he is, then we would be fools to not align ourselves with him. It would seem that the power of the ancients has awakened. This is a sign, I can feel it! I have not told anyone yet, but for months now I have been getting visions of an immensely powerful sorcerer bearing the scorpion mark fighting the snake king. "

Nicademus looked into her eyes and said, "I feel a great war coming between the Sabbat and the Camarilla. I can see this Dark Lord Voldemort aligning himself with the Sabbat. They share the same goals after all. They think themselves better than muggles and wish to rule in the open. We have to crush them once and for all. We have no choice but to pick our champion. Give me your thoughts daughter."

Shauna took her time to collect her thoughts and said, "My Lord, from what I have experienced this Scorpion Sorcerer is not someone to be trifling with. He means to eradicate this Voldemort and destroy their ministry. He hopes to bring all of the other magical races under an equal government. He thinks in multiple dimensions and is heavily immersed in all forms of magic and muggle sciences. He is supremely intelligent and is also a paradox."

Nicademus narrowed his eyes and said, "What do you mean by paradox?"

"He seems to be a man of extremes. To his allies and the innocents his heart is pure. To his enemies his heart is as black as night and is utterly ruthless. The way he has taken out death eaters so far make our assassin squads look like muggle priests." Shauna explained.

Her father looked grave as if debating whether he should tell her something important. He finally looked up into his daughter's eyes for what seemed and eternity and said, "Tell this to no one but I have been getting very strong visions of a jackal and a scorpions army fighting the undead. I have seen cities on fire and rivers of blood. I have also seen the rebirth of Etosha and a new beginning. With my knowledge of our prophecies and these new visions I believe that this Scorpion Sorcerer is also the long awaited Gehenna, the long-prophesied knight of the apocalypse. Send word to the Scorpion Sorcerer that Methuselah Nicademus, leader of the Camarilla and member of the Grangel and Tremere clan requests an audience. Ask him if he could meet us for November 20. We must hurry. The opposition is gathering."

Shauna was shocked to her core at her father's revelations. She always thought Gehenna had been nothing but a myth. That prophecy had been made a very long time ago during the anti-deluvian battles, lost in the antiquity of time, so she thought. She could barely keep her legs from trembling and sat down in her chair. To her knowledge, her father to date had always been proven right with his prophecies. A mighty war was coming that would once and for all decide the fate of the Camarilla along with the rest of the magical races.

Nicademus then said, "Send word to ALL of the princes in Europe and North are to mobilize for a Camarilla summons to be held at the castle for November 20. We must stop the petty squabbles and focus on the real enemy. The princes are to meet the Scorpion Sorcerer. There will be fights, and blood will be shed but in the end we will have one voice and one path, I swear by Cain."

She looked into her father's burning red eyes and replied, "As you command father." Shauna stood up, bowed and returned to her own chambers. She pulled out the funny muggle contraption called a cell phone and debated whether she should call him right now or not. She finally decided to wait until Monday afternoon to contact him. Until then she was going to enjoy her stay at home. She had a hunt to prepare for.

**Monday Morning October 20 Riddle Manor**

Voldemort was sitting on his throne reviewing his latest plan. If he could pull it off then he would gain a powerful force at his side. Twelve years as a spirit had given him a lot of time to ponder his past mistakes. He had wanted power at all cost to the point of subjugating everyone else. This had been a foolish goal. He would gladly share some power with his new potential allies. Their philosophy closely matched his. Muggles were nothing but toys and food. He was brought out of his musing when he heard his inner chamber door open. He looked up to find the rat, Bella and Mulciber walking towards him.

Mulciber walked to his Lord, dropped to one knee and kissed the hem of his robe and said, "My Lord, I have great news for you. It would seem that our esteemed minister of magic took it upon himself to relieve the good wizards and witches of Britannia from heavy taxes by allowing over 600 criminals from all over mainland Europe to be relocated to Azkaban. There are many powerful dark wizards, witches, vampires, and werewolves that will be coming to their new home by the end of November, my Lord."

To their shock their Lord suddenly started laughing like a maniac. They were all looking at each other in bewilderment. They had never seen their Lord let go of his emotions as he had just now. This was either very good or they were in for a very bad time indeed. Unable to take the stress Bella threw herself at his feet and said, "Please my Lord don't punish us. If we have done something wrong, please tell us."

Voldemort stopped laughing and looked at his inner circle bewildered. Why did they think he was going to pushing them? Suddenly he winced and remembered his old self. "Bella! Rise this instant. I have no intention of punishing you for now unless you do something really stupid or fail your mission. This iiissss very good news indeed. With the Dementors we will break into Azkaban and free as many prisoners as possible. They will either join us or die. Our first priority will be the Vampires."

Mulciber was never very quick and sometimes his mouth could get him into trouble. Mulciber suddenly uttered, "Why in hell would we free those wretched creatures first. Let them rot, what is wrong with you?"

Mulciber suddenly realized where he was and suddenly became white as a sheet. He looked up at his Lord's face to find him in a towering fury. Why couldn't he ever shut the fuck up, he though just before he heard his Lord bellow, "CRUCIO."

Voldemort held the fool under the curse for over two minutes. Mulciber ended up loosing control of his bodily functions. When he was done he said, "Don't any of you fools contradict me ever again. The wizards and witches there are important, but I have been in secret negotiations with a very old Vampire of the Sabbat pack. Let's just say their beliefs closely match my own. I was supposed to make my way to the Roman ministry and break some of their princes. It now seems that the fates once again favor your Lord. That fool Fudge will deliver them to me. Saves me time and energy. Azkaban will bestow her fruits once more to us. With these princes indebted to me, I will be able to form a powerful alliance and then we can start searching for this Scorpion Sorcerer and terminate him, then Dumbledore and finally Potter."

Voldemort looked at Mulciber and bellowed, "Take the fool away and clean him up. Maybe this will teach him to keep his worthless tongue to himself."

Bellatrix looked her Mulciber being carried out and swallowing nervously said, "What about the ministry, my Lord?"

Voldemort looked directly at her with his crimson eyes and gave her a leering smile and said, "What about the ministry? My dear Bella, surely you can see that keeping that retard of a minister in power suits our ends rather nicely for now, don't you think? Don't worry Bella, when the time comes, I'll give you the chance to play with Fudgy. Far be it for me to deny you that which you do so well my tortuous Bella. "

Bella looked at her Lord and smiled, "You are most generous my Lord."

Voldemort nodded at her and then said, "Enough of this chit chat. Bella get a hold of Severus and tell him to meet us for supper. Then send word to everyone else to meet us for 8:00 pm. We will meet in the strategy room and plan our little break out. When we are done they won't have a clue what hit them. "

Seeing that no one was moving, Voldemort looked up towards the ceiling and sighed. He finally controlled his temper just enough and yelled, "Well what are you waiting for? MOVE!"

Everyone scrambled to get out of the throne room. Voldemort went back to his throne and hoped to God that some these convicts had brains. If he was honest with himself he missed Lucius slightly. The man was as smarmy as a bottle of virgin olive oil but he could get the job done most of the time. When he got his hands on the Scorpion Sorcerer he was going to kill him very slowly. His face twisted into a mask of fury thinking about the bastards.

_Unknown to Voldemort Fate had her own agenda, and Voldemort was quite low on the scales of things!_

**Monday Afternoon October 20 Wizard Ministry**

Mad Eye Moody was slowly making his way to the central apparition point cursing the stupidity of the Ministry. This was the ultimate brain dead move on their part, he thought. At no time in his distinguished career had he met such an incompetent ministry. To think that the bloody morons were going to actually import criminals took the last straw. Fudge had done it. He had single-handedly created a quagmire that had the potential of creating such havoc on the British wizarding population that should his prediction come to pass, not one family in Britannia would be spared from death. He hoped to God that the Scorpion Sorcerer could do something about this. The Order of the Phoenix already knew about the ministry deal, but he had preached restraint. He believed that all would work out in the end. The man had completely gone south.

He reached the apparition point and took out the ring given to him by Potter and activated it. Moody suddenly found himself in a large chamber and immediately took out his wand. Moody looked around to see a lot of people suddenly staring at him. Moody stood at attention and surveyed his surroundings. The chamber was impressive to say the least. He had never seen such a place in his entire career. He noticed the myriads of training equipment and was nearly blown away by the people who were there.

Moody with his jaw hanging down recognized Tonks, Bill, Fred, George and young Ginny Weasley. He noticed a lot of other people he didn't recognize. Moody suddenly looked up and saw a figure completely hidden in a battle cloak. With the hood pulled down, he could still make out the glowing green orbs emanating from the shadows of his hood. The charms put on his cloak and especially around his hood had to be dark magic. Moody was using his magical eye but even it couldn't penetrate the obscuring charms.

There was no question in Moody's mind that the aura of power that the man was projecting was genuine. Moody couldn't see Potter anywhere but figured he would show up soon. The mysterious man was suddenly in front of him and formally said, "Welcome to our training camp Master Auror Moody. It is a pleasure meeting you. Harry has told us quite a bit about you. I was told that you were interested in joining our little group?"

Harry turned around and in a grave voice said, "All right all you! The show is over. Now get back to work. Show the man here what you can do."

Harry turned back to Moody and said, "Auror Moody, if you could please follow me we need to talk." Harry let Moody to the command center and was rewarded by the bewildered look on Moody's face. Moody was looking at all of the muggle technology and was very surprised to find it operating in a very strong magical environment. They finally reached the command center and Harry asked Moody to sit. Moody agreed and then Harry called for one of his house elves to serve refreshment.

Moody was the first one to speak and said, "Well I can certainly recognize who you are. I have been watching your battles and I must say I am very impressed with what you have accomplished. I have been watching your exploits for some time now, and I find your politics and tactics to be much more in line with my own way of seeing and doing things. I told Potter that I was interested in joining your group. I wish to offer you my services as an experienced Auror and I am willing to make a pledge of non-disclosure to you at your request. "

Harry sat back and examined Moody. The old man still had it in him, he thought. The fact was that Harry liked Moody and felt that the man had way too many shackles imposed on him from the ministry and the turkey club. Harry finally cleared his throat and said, "Mr. Moody, I am pleased that you have shown interest in my organization. I feel I must point out to you that I am a dark arts user and that I don't plan on relinquishing their use in the near future. I heard somewhere that sometimes the only way to beat an opponent is to fight him at his own game. If you find yourself unable to use the dark arts for philosophical reasons, then I am afraid that our meeting is over. However, I don't think that this is the case with you. Am I correct in my assumptions?"

Moody looked at the man and replied, "No, you aren't wrong. Only fools fail to make use of their full arsenal."

Harry slowly nodded at Moody and shot back, "Now like all of the people who willingly follow me, I ask for a magical oath that states you will never reveal the secrets that you are about to learn and that you are willing to learn the dark arts. As I said earlier, if my suspicions are correct, I suspect that you already know a great deal about the dark arts. If you work with us, I believe that we can greatly expand on that knowledge. What do you say?"

Moody gave him one of his crooked smiles and said, "I Alastor Moody, do hereby swear on my magic and proclaim that I do so of my own free will. I swear to never reveal who the Scorpion Sorcerer is and any information about his organization. I swear on my magic that I will lend my knowledge, and skills in service of the Scorpion Sorcerer." A slight teal aura was exchanged between them sealing Moody's bond to Harry.

Harry looked at Moody and said, "Now it is time for me to reveal who I am." With that Harry slowly brought his hands to his hood and pulled it back. Harry felt like erupting into fits of laughter. The look on Moody's face was bloody priceless. The man looked like he was about to shit himself.

Moody could not believe his eyes. Potter was the Scorpion Sorcerer. Moody suddenly bellowed, "Merlin's beard! Fuck me Potter!" Suddenly Moody started laughing so hard that he fell off his chair and couldn't stop erupting into fits of laughter. After several minutes the man began to breathe again and slowly got himself back into his chair. He finally managed to say, "Potter how? I mean, how were you able to become so accomplished in the dark arts over one summer?"

Harry decided to take pity on Moody and began his explanation. He explained Odin's Eye, the trunk manors, his discoveries in magical theory, his training in the dark arts, his discoveries in mixing muggle science and magic. He gave him a detailed explanation of how the electronics worked. When he told him that the Scorpion Lair was the old Chamber of Secrets underneath Hogwarts, he nearly had an apoplectic seizure. Harry took him on a detailed tour of the lair and explained all of its functions. He then gave Moody a detailed account of all of their adventures to date and how they had appropriated Voldemort's war chest. He finally introduced Moody to his old mentors and the rest of the troops.

Moody for his part was simply bewildered to no end towards the end of his afternoon. Now that he looked back, all of the little details that hadn't made sense since he had investigated Potter in Surrey began to gel. When he pieced the time lines in his head, all of the dots led to Potter. After seeing that Odin contraption, he could see how Potter had become so strong. The boy had studied non-stop for nearly five real equivalent years. He had studied so much that he had become a class of warrior above anything he had ever seen.

He couldn't believe the sophistication of Potter's organization. Who was he kidding he thought, he was now part of this organization and felt a sense of elation that he hadn't felt in a very long time. He had a good look at the training that the troops were doing and the only word that came to his mind was brutal. From the looks of things these Hogwarts sixth years could put the ministry's Aurors to shame. These troops weren't hindered by ministry decrees. Their training in magic coupled with muggle science was more powerful than he could have ever dreamed. Voldemort had definitely met his match in Potter.

Finally Harry sat down with him and explained all of the positions that were available in the organization. He asked Moody where he thought he would best fit in. There was research, intelligence, trainer, front line soldier, propaganda, recruiter, and tactician. After some thought, Moody decided to start with tactical planning and training. He planned on reviewing his dark arts knowledge and then go on a massive crash course in dark arts training. He would spy on the order and the ministry.

Harry brought him to stores to be fitted with a portkey ring, a new Raptor broom, a new set of battle robe with the scorpion emblems, and told him that he would be fitted with a new wand come next full moon. Harry explained the connection between the full moon and the wand bonding process. To Moody's ever increasing joy, Harry explained the improvements and performance of the new Raptor brooms.

When he was done Moody seemed to go deep in thought and said, "Potter, I have some urgent news that you need to know. The bloody idiot Fudge has made a deal with the other European ministries and in exchange for some galleons, he has decided to house all of the criminals from mainland Europe in Azkaban. The fool thinks the place will be fool proof with some fancy wards and some dragons. Within two weeks time, Azkaban population will increase by over 600 wizards, witches, vampires and other nastiness."

Harry brought his hands to his temples and began massaging them. Fudge seemed incapable of making any decent decisions. The man was a bloody moron plain and simple. The fucker had to die; he was simply too damn dangerous to keep in power. Harry looked up at Moody and finally said "Voldemort has already broken into that bloody prison. Where the fuck are our minister's brains?"

Harry sat there thinking of the gold nugget that Fudge had given Voldemort. There was no way in hell that Voldemort wouldn't jump at the opportunity to increase his ranks with some of the most despicable wizards and witches that Europe had in its ranks. From all accounts the man's forces were running on vapour. His little campaign of terror seemed to have a major impact on his recruiting. They needed a plan to deny Voldemort his prize.

While Harry was thinking, Moody at the top of his head said, "One thing for sure we haven't heard a whole lot about the Dementors lately and I have a feeling that they are going to play a big role when he decides to attack."

Harry looked at Moody gobsmacked. He couldn't believe that he had forgotten about those putrid fucking horrid nightmares. He was stunned. How could he of all people forget about Voldemort's most faithful allies? His new top priority now was to figure out a way to protect his troops from their influence.

Thank Merlin that Moody had reminded him. He finally took Moody to the trunk manor to show him his room. He took the time to explain how he had invented the trunks. He took some pity on Moody because the man looked completely bewildered. When Harry had showed him how all of the trunks were connected by floo and that his new portkey ring could punch through any wards, he left him to get acquainted with his new residence and went back to the command center.

Harry looked at his watch and noticed that he had about forty minutes to kill. He decided to do an Occlumency session in order to catalogue his new data and reflect on his weekend. Thinking about the weekend brought a smile to his face. It had started a bit rocky, but taking time to relax with Xiana had done them both a world of good. He honestly didn't know what he would do without his wife. Harry remembered that he needed to find out what Horcruxes were and their importance to Voldemort. Harry decided to make his way to the great hall for some supper and entertainment.

Harry left the command center and was about to apparate to Myrtle's bathroom when he heard two voices that could only spell trouble. Harry turned around to find two smiling faces beaming at him.

Harry cocked his eyebrow at them and said, "Fred and Gorge, how can I help my two favorite business partners?"

Fred and George looked at each other and said in unison, "Oh great and mighty sponsor of Weasley Wizard's Wheeze we come to bring you tidings that the time has arrived to launch the new line of Techno magic products which has come about from your gracious donations and discoveries."

Fred looked at Harry and said, "It has come to our attention that our world had been held back due to a, shall we say, lack of vision by our fearless leaders."

"Therefore, a new line of product is just begging to be let loose on the deserving masses." George continued.

Fred grinned and added, "What my dear brother Gred is alluding to is that we would like to capitalize on your intellectual discovery concerning muggle electronics and magic and have a whole line of specially modified muggle entertainment. These include such things as stereos, television, and VCR to name a few. We believe that it is high time that our world discover how the other half-lives!"

George added, "We are ready to market these products to all of the wizards and witches and wanted your blessing and muggle factory contacts which would be able to manufacture these delicacies for us. Of course due to intellectual property rights, we feel that you are entitled to thirty percent of the proceeds if that is ok with you. We'll be using our own newly acquired funds to finance the new business, and would incorporate the new line of products as Weasley's Techno Magic supplies. What do you say?"

Harry thought about it for about ten minutes analyzing all the pros and cons and decided to add some stipulations. "It would be good for wizard and witches, especially the pureblood kind to see the benefits of muggle inventions. However, I don't want to give away our significant advantages. I don't want to market any communication equipment such as cell phones, computers and any other hand held communication devices until Voldemort and his merry band are gone.

It would be smart to also make it look like it was your company that made the electronic changes on the muggle equipment. I don't want the opposition to even think that we outsourced this merchandise to specialty muggle industries. Make sure to pick a place preferably outside of England where your merchandise can be delivered to. You can then portkey it back to your store. Also make sure to destroy all invoices before the merchandise reaches our world. I know I may sound a little paranoid here, but I would rather be safe than sorry. Is that o.k. with you guys?"

Fred and George looked at each other and smiled. They turned towards Harry and said in unison "Deal!"

Harry laughed at the twin's antics, and remembered that he wanted to discuss an idea with them and said, "Now that we have that piece of business taken care of, I was wandering if you guys would mind modifying one of your inventions. I was thinking of your mini swamp. If we come across giants in battle, it would be nice for them to step into a nice swamp that could then encase them in a rock coffin. Do you think that would be feasible?"

The twins looked at each other and seemed to be communicating silently. They started throwing ideas at each other until George turned around and said, "Harry my boy, it seems that this is your lucky day. I believe that we can modify the swamp to turn into stone. This will involve some very delicate charms and potions work, but it should work."

Harry smiled back and replied, "Well, I haven't talked to Hagrid since my little confrontation at Grimmauld place, but I think we need to find what the giants are up to. I am positive that Voldemort has sent agents to recruit them or will be forcing them into an alliance somehow."

The twins cringed at the mention of the giants siding with Voldemort. They may not have joined him yet, but they had to be prepared for any contingency. Harry finally looked up and said, "Well I have to get going and make an appearance." The twins saluted and portkeyed out of the lair. Harry was slowly making his way to the center of the lair when his cell phone went off. He dialled in and to his surprise he found himself talking to Shauna. Harry immediately activated the special GPS locator function on his phone and returned to his conversation.

They talked for about ten minutes. She told him that her father, their leader wanted an audience with him. She gave him apparition coordinate and told him to meet them on November 20. She told them that he could bring two people with him. When they were done, Harry punched in a code and read the coordinates that the cell phone had recorded. The coordinates from his cell phone almost matched to a tee the coordinates she had given him except for a few seconds difference. He decided to memorize the cell phone coordinates and key them into his ring.

The difference could be attributed to the fact that he had to apparate or portkey outside of some established wards. Well, he thought, they might not appreciate someone passing through their wards but he was going to do it anyway. Their wards were no doubt based on blood magic. He needed to make a show of his power and what better way than portkey through wards that are deemed impregnable. Harry was very familiar with blood wards since he had raised many of them on his ancestral castle and grounds.

Harry disillusioned his battle robes into his school robes and apparated back to Myrtle's bathroom. He slowly made his way towards the great hall. He was careful to make sure that no one saw him come out of the bathroom. He looked at his watch and noticed that supper would start in about ten minutes. Student population was slowly making their way the great hall. He just hoped that chilli pepper and the beaver would just leave him alone. In order to calm his mind he reviewed his memories from his weekend with Xiana. They needed to have their time off on a regular basis, he now realized. He finally reached the great hall and seeing that Neville and Luna were sitting towards the end of the Gryffindor table he went and sat with them.

Neville was talking with Luna about their latest training session and about Moody joining them when he saw Harry make his way to their table. Neville smiled and said, "Oi!" Harry smirked and sat in front of them.

Neville looked around and seeing no teachers, cast several privacy charms. He then looked at Harry and whispered, "Before I left, I saw you receiving a phone call, is everything all right?"

Harry smiled and replied, "No I think it's great news. You remember the vampires we rescued? Well she just phoned me to let me know that the leader of the Camarilla wants and audience with me."

Luna and Neville looked at each other and both of their eyebrows were near the top of their hairline. Luna was the first to speak and said, "An alliance with the entire Camarilla against Voldemort would be very powerful. Of course the Camarilla has been fighting their own enemies for a very long time. Unfortunately, for us we don't know who they are. We could be stepping into a hornet's nest. With an alliance it would mean their enemies also. "

Harry looked at Luna and couldn't help admire her intelligence. She was easily the equivalent to Beaver in brainpower. Harry dissected her analysis and then looked up and said, "Luna is right. We have to tread carefully with this. I imagine that I'll be learning a lot more about who their enemies are. In the mean time it would be to our advantage to develop more potent weapons against Vampires. I was just thinking about a muggle weapon called sarin gas. It is a potent neurological toxin that kills muggles fairly quickly. The toxin is extracted from the castor bean."

Harry paused to review his analysis and continued, "I was wondering if we could create the equivalent using some sort of magical plants, which would affect most magical life forms. If we could create an antidote to go with it, it would give us a huge advantage on the battlefield. Neville, could you have a look into it for me? No one can match your herbology skills, if there is such a thing you are the man for the job. The second thing is I would like both of you to accompany me on November 20 to meet the Vampire clans. There is no way in hell I want to bring Xiana with me. She would be killing half the female population on site. If you are too busy, let me know and I'll find two others."

Neville and Luna looked at each other much like Harry did with Xiana. Their silent communication lasted a few seconds and then Neville answered, "We'll be there. In the meantime I'll get started on my new project. I think I have the perfect plant in mind."

Neville then turned to Luna and said, "I'll need to carry out a few tests first."

Neville turned to his fiancé and said, "Babe would you like to assist me?"

Luna gave him her usual dreamy smile and replied, "I would love the chance to experiment with you sweetie. Of course you do realize that we'll have to be careful with the Nebeloneous Razorbacks, they are a right pain this time of year."

Harry and Neville looked at each other and smiled. Luna was one of a kind, as Neville would put it. It was clear to Harry that Neville absolutely adored Luna. Harry was about to ask Luna a question when a very familiar voice decided to grate on his nerves once again. Harry slowly turned away from Neville to see the faces of Chilli Pepper and his sidekick Beaver Von Granger glaring at him. Harry put as much venom as he could and said, "Why are you still talking to me? I thought I made it quite clear that I no longer wanted anything to do with you two. You are dead to me already. Now please do yourself a favor and get away from my face, you're starting to make me nauseous." Harry turned around to talk with Luna.

Ron was fuming once again. Every time he saw Potter he wanted to bash his face in. One day he was going to get him. He was about to curse but Mione put her hand on his arm and shook her head. Ron gathered as much venom as he could and spat back, "Don't get too comfortable Potty, this isn't over by a long shot." Both he and Hermione took a seat at the other end of the table.

The teachers were now sitting in their respective chair. Dumbledore had been watching the exchange between Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. He had hoped that the Potter brat would slip and start a fight. Albus needed some ammunition against the lad, if he was going to discredit him. He was hoping to sway public opinion against him and make him drop out. All alone he would soon find himself disadvantaged and would be at his mercy. Suddenly Albus heard a screech that heralded the arrival of mail. Albus spotted a Gringotts owl going to Potter.

He was about to reach for the Lamb stew when he noticed an official ministry owl land in front of him. Albus took the rolled parchment away from the owl and broke the official seal from the Magical Law Enforcement department. As he read the letter his face suddenly blanched. He never expected the Potter brat to have it in him to take him on in this manner.

Well he thought, if it's a fight he wants then by Merlin's beard he was going to get one. After all what does he know about the laws of the Wizengamot? Albus thought that he could beat Potter with his clout. After all he had returned the money back to him, and as for his parents' will, he was going to discredit his parents' choices. That would be enough to sway the upper house of Lords. There was no doubt that this little charade was going to cost him. Damn that little upstart. Albus looked towards Potter who was looking straight at him and found him smirking.

Albus narrowed his eyes and slowly took the letter and ripped it in half in front of his face. He noticed that Potter was now laughing. Albus was seething with rage. He finally noticed that the hall had gone completely quiet. The teachers were now also giving him a queer look. He realized too late that Potter had once again caused him to lose his composure.

Albus slowly put the letter down, and acted as if it was just a nasty letter. He gave everyone his genuine smile and went back to his stew. The hall slowly came back to its usual noise level. Albus waited for a few minutes and slowly turned his head towards Severus who was looking straight into his eyes. Looking at him with his eyebrows scrunched up, Albus slowly turned his head back towards Potter. Severus followed his gaze and found himself looking at Potter. Albus was rewarded by the venomous look Severus was sending the Potter brat. Albus mused that Potter was going to find it difficult to attend to his lawsuit from a hospital wing.

Harry himself had received a post owl, which he recognized as belonging to Gringotts. Harry took the letter from the beautiful black eagle/owl cross breed and gave the owl some of his sausage. Harry opened the letter to find that it was from Golderek who was head of the Goblin high council. It basically said that due to a very important worldwide Goblin council, their meeting for November 5 would be delayed until November 30. Harry shrugged and went back to eating his conjured meal. He didn't mind waiting for the Goblins. Truth be told, he had way too much on his plate as it were. He needed to get through the NEWT first. Harry looked up at the enchanted ceiling to find that it was dark and raining. Harry looked at the black clouds and finally went back to his meal.

**Monday November 10 DADA Class**

Harry had made his way early to DADA class in order to review his plans. He reflected on his last two weeks, which had been very busy indeed. He had finally completed his NEWT. The morning had been theory and afternoon practice. Harry had found the exams not too gruelling. He had really enjoyed the practical aspects. He knew he had aced DADA, Charms, Transfiguration, Arithmancy and Potions. Runes had been quite challenging and he wasn't too sure about some of his translations. Herbology, History of Magic and Care of Magical Creatures he had done well. Harry even found out that there were some NEWT exams that one could take which were not even on the school curriculum. He ended up paying more in order to take a NEWT in muggle studies and Wizarding Law. He thought he did quite well on them, but time would tell. His results would be mailed to him towards the end of November. Until then he had to keep up with the bullshit at Hogwarts. Truth be told, Tonks had communicated to Harry that more witches and wizards wanted to join him. She had been very discreet in approaching these candidates. Apparently, the Patil twins, Chris McGhee, John Hobbit, and Scott McGinnis wanted to join his side.

Harry reflected on his parent's final resting place. He had wanted to bring his parents back to Potter castle for their final rest. He wanted to be close to them and had explained to Xiana what he wanted to do. She had been with him on that difficult night. Meeting his parents' final resting place had brought forth long buried memories.

**Flashback October 31**

Harry was standing by the bay window watching lighting strikes on the tumultuous seas. Tonight was the night that he was bringing his parents remains back to Potter ancestral home. He wanted to be close to them and the best time for moving the dead was at the fall equinox known as Halloween to muggles. However to wizards and the ancient Celtic Druids, October 31 was one of their holy nights. Recalling his encyclopedic knowledge, it was also known as the fire festival. The four holy names were _Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane and Lughnasadh. _They are known respectively as winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice and fall equinox.

From October 31 to November 2, the ancient Druid mages understood that the veil between this world and the world of our Ancestors was drawn aside on these nights, and for those who were prepared, journeys could be made in safety from the other side. The Druid rites were concerned with making contact with the spirits of the departed. They were seen as sources of guidance and inspiration rather than as sources of dread. The dark moon, the time when no moon can be seen in the sky, was the phase of the moon which ruled this time, because it represented the time in which our mortal sight needed to be obscured in order to see into the other world.

Harry had been deep in thought when he had felt Xiana's hand on his shoulder. They had portkeyed to Godric's Hollow and made their way to the hidden cemetery based on Remus instruction. After searching the cemetery they found his parents' head stones. The area had been poorly maintained. There were weeds starting to overtake the head stones. Harry was now furious that his parent's final resting place had been so poorly maintained.

Harry immediately took out four black granite marbles and transfigured them into fire pots. Harry placed the fire pots at each corner of a box, which contained both of his parents' burial plots. The rain had finally abated but it was still misting outside and Harry could hear the thunder in the background. He took out his wand and lit the fire pots with a beautiful blue flame. It gave the whole place an eerie feeling.

Harry had then chanted an ancient Druid spell, _"Oscail- caillí agus- meandar- tá ciumhais an dá fháinne ailínithe sa phlána céanna."_ This spell was meant to appease his parent's restless souls and prepare them for their new resting place. If one were lucky enough a ghostly image would appear to the caster. Harry didn't see any image but he did feel a deep sense of contentment.

At that moment a golden dome had formed over the burial site and had parted the earth. The coffins had suddenly lifted in the air and had hovered at waist level. Harry with tears in his eyes had beckoned Xiana to him and together they had placed a portkey ring on each of the coffins and had portkeyed back to the Potter family crypt located about one hundred meters east of the castle.

Harry had greatly expanded the original complex. The new crypt is where he had laid his parents to rest. The head stone were a carved bust of each of his parents, created from one of their wedding photos. Harry had then put his parents' coffin inside a marble sarcophagus and had inlaid a lily flower and a stag on top cover. Harry had then charmed the roof of the crypt to see the sky. Harry had then built his godfather's sarcophagus besides his parents.

Xiana had stayed at his side holding his hand the whole time. She didn't say anything but was just there for him. Remus had joined him later and had cried at seeing members of his pack laid to rest. The wounds had temporarily reopened but it had been worth it. They had had all made their piece that night. Even Xiana had cried at being denied the chance to meet her in laws. When they were done, Harry had then sealed the chambers with many wards including blood wards. He remembered his last words that night, "Welcome home Dad, Mom and Sirius."

**End Flashback**

Harry looked at his watch and noticed that it would be another hour before class started. He took out his notebook and began reading Remus' notes on his meeting at the werewolf gathering. Harry was almost done with the notes. Poor Remus had come home with some bruises and cuts, but nothing too serious, thank God he thought. Apparently the meeting had been about forming alliances. It appears that the werewolf clans were split on the issues. They had initially discussed the pros and cons of joining Voldemort until Remus had approached the clan elders and gave them another choice.

Apparently, after viewing the offer the _Manitoulin_ clan from North America had approached Remus about setting up a meeting with him. Four other clans had joined the Manitoulin. The _Lou Garou_ clan from France had made it known to the others that they were in Voldemort's camp and had attempted to remove Remus permanently. The _Manitou _clan had taken exception to the _Lou Garou's_ strong hand tactics and had accused _Lou Garou_ of breaking the sacred laws. Every clan had brought three hundred of their members. The meeting soon turned to open hostilities. The _Manitou_ clan had garnered four other clans with them against _Lou Garou_ whom had only one other ally.

Open war had been declared in the Scottish Highlands. _Lou Garou_ soon learned why the _Manitou _clan was the most powerful werewolf clan in the world. It had been a virtual blood bath according to Remus. _Lou Garou_ had lost over one hundred members before abandoning the field. Manitou had lost twenty-four members. The head of the Manitou clan with the consent of the other clan elders had approached Remus about meeting the Scorpion Sorcerer. Remus, bless his heart, had told them that the Scorpion Sorcerer be able to meet the elders in early December if that was o.k. The clan elders had agreed and Remus had formulated the protocols, location and final date of the meeting.

Harry picked up the latest sales report from the twins and smiled. Techno Magic was taking the Wizarding world by storm. It had been such a smashing success that the twins were being begged by other European ministries to establish shops in their enclaves. Harry had gotten a special letter from the Goblin High Council praising him for his business sense. Techno Magic share value had increased five hundred percent in ten days. Things were looking up, he thought.

Harry was looking towards the front desk deep in thought when he felt an elbow smack him in the shoulder. Harry looked to his right to see Chilli Pepper and the Beaver walking past. Harry sneered and said, "What's wrong Weasley? Need to hit people from behind now to make yourself feel important. Only cowards attack people from behind. You would make a great Slytherin, you know. "

Harry was preparing himself for a fight. Sure enough the stupid dolt quickly turned around and started coming toward him. Harry remained seated, but had his wand out. The Beaver was screaming for him to stop. Every one in the class had stopped talking. Suddenly Weasley tripped and fell flat on his face. Harry noticed Neville pulling his foot back in and laughing at Weasley. Soon the whole class joined him. Ron got up and his face was the color of dried tomatoes. He had a fury on his face that might have been an attempt at being scary but actually came off looking like a bad case of constipation.

At that instant, Harry heard the classroom door slam and heard Snape say, "Weasley you insufferable egomaniac, you are a sorry excuse for a wizard. Get back to your seat this instant and 20 points from Gryffindor for disrupting class."

Ron looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. The boy really had to learn self-control Harry thought. For her part, Granger was shooting daggers at him and Snape. Harry put on his best-bored attitude and watched Snape walk to the front of the class with his robe bellowing behind him. He got to his desk and in a dramatic way, quickly turned around to survey the classroom. God, the ponce sure loved his melodramatics. Snape was finally looking at him and Harry could see a small smirk forming at the corner of his mouth. Something didn't feel right, Harry thought. Harry narrowed his eyes and gave Snape his best sneer.

Snape with a sneer of his own said, "Class! Today we have been blessed. The great Harry Potter had decided to grace us with his presence. He thinks himself so special, that he doesn't need to attend classes like everyone else. Don't blame though, it's really not his fault. Potter here can't help himself. It's in his genes. His father was just as arrogant. I guess the apple didn't fall to far off the tree. Mind him your father did do something right in his pathetic life. He managed to leave this world early and as a bonus he took his mudblood mother with him"

Some of the Slytherins in the class were now howling with laughter and pointing at Harry. Harry slowly stood up and brought his body magic to full capacity. Unknown to Harry the classroom door had just been opened without a sound. Harry with vampire like speed and strength picked up his desk and threw it at Snape.

Severus saw Potter rise from his chair and knew he had properly baited the brat. It was time to teach the whelp a really painful lesson. Severus was brought out of his musing by a desk heading straight for his head. He quickly whipped out his wand and yelled, "Reducto!" The desk was turned into sawdust.

Harry had immediately brought his new wand from its holster. He was through messing around with the bastard. He could insult him all he wanted but his parents, family and friends were off limit. Harry with as much venom as he could muster said, "My father was ten times the man you will ever hope to be. He died protecting my mother and me from your Dark Lord. You could take some lessons from him Snivellus. You know the ones about courage, honor, integrity, looks, cleanliness, and magical talent to name a few. It's really too bad that Sirius' prank at the Whomping Willow didn't work out that night. It would have saved countless magical children being taught by a biased and incompetent teacher. My father was right about one thing - your problem is that you were born."

Snape roared and bellowed, "How dare you speak to me this way you little shit! I know more about survival in this world than you can ever hope to learn. You are nothing but an arrogant, overbearing and petulant little child with no real magical talent and I'll finally prove it to everyone. I Severus Octavius Snape challenge you Harry James Potter to an all out duel. Everything allowed including dark arts except for the killing curse. If you accept we will duel on the Quidditch pitch in one hour. Let's make this interesting and invite the rest of the school. After all we wouldn't want to deprive them of the privilege of seeing the great Harry Potter grovel at my feet begging for his life."

The room was suddenly so quiet that one could hear a pin drop. Harry slowly surveyed the shocked faces of his classmates. Harry saw Chilli Pepper and Beaver smirking at him. So this was Snape's game plan all along. Harry knew he was up to something when he saw that stupid smirk on his face at the beginning of the class. Snape had suckered him into a duel. Harry could almost see the old goat fucker's hands in this. So they were setting him up. Harry had an hour to figure out why. Seeing that the class was waiting, Harry bellowed, "I Harry James Potter accepts Severus Octavius Snape duel challenge. The duel will end when one member is fully incapacitated. No killing curses allowed."

Harry turned around to go get ready when he saw the headmaster standing at the entrance to the classroom. Harry looked at the headmaster and narrowed his eyes. Green glowing orbs met glacier blue eyes. The twinkle was gone from Dumbledore's eyes replaced with cold power.

Dumbledore looked at the flaming green orbs directed at him and couldn't help the shiver running down his spine. Harry brought forth his dementor aura and everyone in the vicinity could feel the room dropping in temperature. Harry project all of the hate he had for the man who was the caused him so much misery.

Dumbledore could literally see the hate coming off Potter's eyes. Dumbledore wondered one more time how his plans had degenerated so badly in such a short time frame. Fate could be very unforgiving it seemed. Dumbledore broke eye contact and looked at Severus and said, "Professor Snape, I would be honored if you would allow me to stand in as your second."

Severus bowed to Dumbledore and said, "Headmaster, it would be an honor and privilege to have you as my second."

To everyone's surprise in the room except for Harry, Blaise, Brianna, and Theo, Neville Longbottom stood up with cat like grace and said, "Harry I would be honored if you would allow me to stand in as your second."

Harry immediately replied, "The honor is all mine Neville. I would gladly have you as my second." Neville bowed to Harry and then turned towards the headmaster and gave him the most evil smile that he could muster.

For the second time this morning, Dumbledore found himself looking at cinnamon colored eyes filled with hate and power directed towards him. Dumbledore broke contact with Neville and directed his gaze to Severus who seemed to be just as shocked as he was. Dumbledore simply raised his eyebrows and said, "I will go a set up the Quidditch pitch and let the rest of the school know.

Blaise had been ready to stand by his brother in law when Neville beat him to the punch. Blaise looked at Brianna and Theo and in silent communication they quietly left the classroom, to catch up with Neville and Harry. Neville and Harry turned around to see who it was and then waited for the others to catch up. Neville turned back towards Harry and said, "Harry, I am positive this is a set up. They are planning something. I mean it can't be a coincidence that Dumbledore just happened to be by Snape's classroom just as he made the duel challenge. What's even more unnerving is the fact that Dumbledore accepted to be his second. I'll bet those fuckers had planned it all along."

Brianna was thinking furiously and said, "Harry you said last night that Dumbledore received his summons from the department of magical law. The date is set for November 15. Don't you think this is too much of a coincidence that this duel with Snape is happening so close to the court date?"

Everyone stopped and looked at each other. They then looked at Harry who seemed to be lost in his thoughts. After standing there for nearly five minutes gazing into the abyss Harry suddenly said, "I think Neville and Brianna have made the connection. Think about this, if Snape manages to injure me bad enough to be laid up in the Hospital, then the trial will have to re-schedule. I was lucky to get a court trial so quick. The backlog at the ministry is humongous. If this trial is delayed, it would take quite a while before the next court date comes up. This would definitely give the old goat fucker more then enough time to formulate his plans."

Harry slowly looked at each of them and continued, "Here is what we are going to do. Brianna, could you please portkey to the lair and pick up an invisibility cloak and go spy on Dumbledore at the Quidditch pitch. I don't trust Dumbledore to not lay out some kind of magical booby traps. Blaise and Theo if you could please get into the infirmary undetected and set up a disillusion ward on the south corner of the stained glass window and the painting of Alcazar the Magnificent, that would be great.

When you are done Blaise could you find Ginny and tell her to contact Bill and have him meet us at the lair later this afternoon. Theo, find Tonks, this will be the best opportunity we have to install a camera in the Headmasters office. Immobilize the portraits while Tonks installs the camera. The wall behind his desk would be perfect as long as it's high enough. I have been waiting this opportunity for a long time. As for Snape, it's high time for that he get his judgment day. The fucker has been living on burrowed time for far too long." He spat.

Everyone hurried to their assignment while Harry and Neville portkeyed back to command center. Once they arrived they informed everyone about the duel and the plan. Harry created a special portkey for later that night. He then exchanged some ideas with Neville on some duel strategies. Harry decided to go through his vigorous checklist before battle. He finally used a parseltongue illusion charm on his Basilisk battle robes. Only a parseltongue could remove the illusion. His battle robe was charmed to look like regular outdoor robes. Harry knew t hat Xiana would kick his ass if he didn't take all necessary precautions.

Harry looked at his watch and nodded at Neville. They both portkeyed to the Gryffindor Quidditch locker rooms and slowly made their way to the Quidditch pitch. They entered the pitch to find the bleachers almost filled to capacity. Neville bumped Harry and pointed at some of the signs, which were being flashed. Most of them seemed to favor Harry. No big surprise there, most of the student populations absolutely despised the bastard potions master. Harry looked towards the Gryffindor bleachers and found Ginny and Ron fighting in the bleachers. Hermione seemed to be yelling at Ginny and Blaise was threatening Hermione. Harry just shook his head. Harry had a very hard time understanding his ex-best friends' behavior. Why couldn't they see Dumbledore for who he really was?

Harry noticed that the middle of the pitch had been transfigured into a large rectangular sand mote. It was roughly one hundred feet long by fifty feet wide. Harry noticed that Snape and Dumbledore were conversing. They both looked up when they saw Neville and him come in. Harry could hear the crowd whispering and pointing. Harry could literally feel the tension and anxiousness in the crowd.

Neville for his part was mentally bringing his battle folders to the forefront of his mental shields just like Harry had taught them. Neville had a hard time containing his enthusiasm. There was no doubt in his mind that Snape was about to receive the beating of a lifetime. Neville had duelled Harry enough times to know that Snape was essentially fucked. Neville really hoped that Dumbledore get in the frazzle. Neville wanted to dish out some payback. He hadn't forgotten the memory blocks that Dumbledore had put on him as a baby.

Harry and Neville slowly made their way to the landing on the north side of the pitch. Harry took out his wand and Neville did the same while taking his place roughly ten feet behind him. Harry relaxed his mind and brought forth all of his battle folders. Anyone watching Harry would have seen his face become cold and stone like. Harry noticed that Brianna was approaching him from his right. They all knew that Dumbledore could see through invisibility cloaks hence Brianna showing herself made sense. She approached him and whispered in his ear that Dumbledore had cast several charms towards the center of the sand moats but she had no idea what they were. Harry nodded and she made her way back towards the bleachers.

Harry brought forth his aura-reading gift and saw the different energy waves emanating from the center of the sand moat. Harry compared the colors of the energy waves with his database of energy signatures. He quickly isolated the spells that had been cast on towards the middle of the moat. Harry saw a _Corbita-Tutela_, which was a speed-reducing ward. Anyone triggering the ward would see his reflexes slow down dramatically. He also spotted a _Scabies_-_Enclaves_ ward, which would cause anyone to develop a bad case of the itch by bumping into that ward.

Just behind that, Harry found a _confundus _ward. Anyone tangling with that ward would become instantly confused. Harry couldn't believe the gall of the goat fucker. Dumbledore must have thought that a six-year student couldn't possibly have the knowledge to detect the curse wards. Well, good thing that Dumbledore had no clue that he was an aura reader. Nothing like a little embarrassment to start things right, Harry thought.

Dumbledore was looking at the proceedings with a somewhat detached attitude. That was until he saw the young Zabini female approach Potter. She briefly whispered to him and then left. What in the world would a Slytherin and a Zabini to boot have to say to Potter, he thought? He just hoped that Potter could be taken out early. The last thing he wanted was to get in the fray. Potter had really messed up by accepting Longbottom. The boy was near squib he thought. He had made sure of that himself, he mused.

To Harry's surprise, Madame Hooch appeared. She seemed tense but business like. She was wearing a full set Auror battle robe which could only mean that she was going to be officiating the duel. She approached the center of the sand mote and cast sonorous on herself. She looked around the pitch and bellowed, "Students of Hogwarts, staff and duellers. I have been asked to officiate for this duel. Spectator shields have been erected to prevent powerful spells from hurting spectators. The Contra Ferrate rules of 1357 apply in this particular duel. This means that all magic is allowed except the killing curse. The first person to be completely incapacitated will be declared loser. Are there any questions?"

Harry cast sonorous on his voice and bellowed, "Madame Hooch you may not be aware of this, but I have detected some illegal wards which have been set up close to your position. What is the penalty for cheaters Madam Hooch?"

The crowd went silent for a minute upon hearing his accusations and then went wild and started shouting. It looked like pandemonium was about to erupt. Hooch bellowed, "Silence!" Immediately the crowd began to quiet down. Hooch looked livid and Dumbledore's face seemed to have turned pasty white. She finally looked at both duelling parties and said, "Mr. Potter, are you insinuating that your opposition has cheated?"

Madame Hooch, I can only speculate since I have no proof. It is **clear** that someone wanted to play an underhanded game here tonight. Harry looked at Dumbledore while launching his accusation. Harry looked around the pitch and continued, "However! My intent here is to defend my honor. Now, I'm sure that if you asked Professor Flitwick, he could identify and remove those nasty little curse wards. "Harry said the last with a sneer on his face.

Hooch narrowed her eyes at him but agreed with his suggestion. Much to everyone's pleasure the vertically challenged Charms professor made his way to the sand moat and started casting different types of revealing spells. Once he had identified the wards, he made quick work of them. Madame Hooch finally said, "Duellers on me."

Both Snape and Harry made their way to the middle of the sand moat. Hooch said, "Professor Snape and Mr. Potter you have thirty seconds for commentaries before hostilities are allowed. You are not to begin the duel until you are back to your respective positions."

Snape was the first to speak and said, "Potter you don't know how long I have waited for this. It's really too bad that we can't use the killing curse. It pleases me greatly that the golden boy of the Wizarding world doesn't have the intent or the magical power to cast such a dark curse. I can't wait to see you beg at my feet Potter. I hope your stupid father and the mudblood whore that you call a mother are watching this. They are about to be severely disappointed in you Potter." Snape said his last words with a malicious smile on his face.

Harry dripping pure venom leered at Snape and whispered so that only Snape could hear, "You can't imagine the pure orgasmic pleasure I had torturing that spineless whelp you called a godson. I can still hear him begging for his life just like you will very soon. You should have seen him begging while his own mother cut off his balls and he vomited and shit all over himself. Don't feel bad, you rat fuck son of a bitch, you'll soon join him in hell fucking his tight little ass. "

Snape's face took on a look of pure hate and fury. Harry simply smirked at him. Hooch looked at both of them and said, "Duellers take your position!"

Harry walked back to his position and waited. Snape did the same. Hooch had her hand up and bellowed, "Begin!"

Snape wasn't fooling around and went straight to the dark arts by sending a barrage of nasty spells. He immediately cast _Reducto-Maxims/ Conglobo- Accendo/ Cariosus- Carnis _Harry immediately saw a maximum explosion, an incendiary, and a rotting flesh spell coming his way.

Harry instantly launched a series of layered defensive and offensive spells. Harry bellowed, "_Transformo- Sabulum-Lapis/ Penetrabilis-Matara/ Diffindo-Caruncula-Facere/ Inferorum-Animas- Chalybeius/ Ku-šen_."

Immediately a wall of sand transformed into a six inch thick wall of black granite which was followed by a slew of spikes followed by a dark cutting hex to the face and ten balls of sand transformed into steel balls with a seeking charms. The last spell was a dark shield. Snape's Reducto smashed Harry's granite wall, but his powerful dark shield stopped the shrapnel and deflected the rotting flesh curse.

Severus with a smirk on his face had expected to overwhelm Potter with his first volley of spells. The speed of Potter's counter attack had instead badly shaken him. He saw a series of spells, which he didn't even recognize but could tell they were dark in origin.

When the fuck had the brat found the time to learn the dark arts was now the million-galleon question. For good measure Severus cast his most powerful shield and threw himself face flat against the sand. Severus looked up to see a wall of spikes fly by him, and could feel a nasty dark cutting hex pass him by also. Thinking he had avoided the worst he started to get up when he noticed a slew of metal balls heading straight for him. He cast _Protego _and rolled to his right.

The first five balls hit his shield and bounced off but in the process shattered the energy barrier. Severus noticed more balls heading his way and seeing as he had no time to cast another shield charm. He immediately dropped to his knees and let the remaining steel balls sail overhead. With astonishment on his face he noticed that the balls were coming back at him.

He quickly fired off a slew of _Reducto_ spells and managed to destroy seven of the balls, but three found their target and Severus felt his knee cap shatter along with a few ribs. Severus cried out "Bastard!" He quickly cast a temporary pain relieving charm on his knee and quickly stood up. He then finally managed to pulverize the remaining steel balls coming to his left. He looked towards Potter and with pure venom cast "_Adicio-Lancea / Crucio / Decem_ -_Commuto-Canis."_

While Snape was busy with his little steel ball, Harry began a pentagram chant. While waving his wand in a pentagonal manner he cast out four ancient runes in quick succession on the sand forming a box that was roughly thirty feet long by thirty feet wide. The runes glowed a crimson red and then vanished. Suddenly Harry brought forth his full powers of concentrations. With beads of sweat on his forehead, He layered a series of spells and silently cast, _Caliginosus-_ _Obductio /Anima- Imago- Humus / Serpensortia-Immanis- Basilisk / Praestigiae- Occaeco_

Suddenly Harry's first spell triggered a big pitch black box that was roughly a thirty-foot cube. No one could see inside the box except for the person in the box. The book on Sun-Tzu often extolled the element of surprise Harry recited. His second spell conjured a golem out of sand made in his likeness. He then animated the construct to move in a human like fashion. The details were so exquisite that it was nearly impossible to tell the difference between them. His hardest spell in the duel so far was a transfigured forty foot Basilisk from sand.

The basilisk was not able to petrify any living creatures, since in itself it was not a living entity, but it could petrify conjured or transfigured animals from inanimate objects. Harry looked at the swaying monster and hissed, Attack the men at the other end of the sand trap. The basilisk reared itself ready to attack waiting for the black veil to lift. The final spell rendered him invisible. Harry quickly moved to the outer edge of the sand moat and waited for the black cloud to dissipate. It didn't take long for complete hell to break out.

Harry could hear screaming coming from the bleachers. Everyone was panicking at the sight of the Basilisk. Harry looked towards Neville and even he seemed transfixed by the creature. Harry turned just in time to see Snape's spells reach their target. The conjured lances missed his golem by mere inches. Harry figured that the dark cloud must have caused Snape to lose his focus. Harry immediately recognized the next spell as a _Crucio_. If nothing else, the stupid death eater was predictable, he thought. The last spell saw ten large hounds heading towards his Golem.

Immediately his Basilisk reared up and engaged the Golems. The Basilisk instantly petrified seven of the Hounds. It swept its tail in a great arc and lunged at the petrified hounds. Within seconds the hounds had crumpled to dust. Three hounds had slipped by the king of snakes and jumped on his golem. Harry needed to get the bloody hounds off his Golem in a hurry to keep up the illusion that it was him. The Basilisk turned around to attack the remaining hounds but Harry had already cast, _Ablegatio- Compingo/_ _Gu-ul-þara_

Harry had banished the large hounds high in the air and used his most powerful explosion curse. The blinding and loud explosion pulverized the remaining hounds into sand dust. The screaming in the bleachers increased another notch. Harry cast a silence charm on his feet and slowly started walking towards Snape's position. The king of snakes suddenly lunged at full speed towards Snape and Dumbledore.

Albus Dumbledore seemed to lose all blood in his face. He never imagined that young Potter could duel with such ruthlessness. He had to admit that the Basilisk transfiguration was worthy to be called a master's level spell. The bloody beast seemed so life like it was unbelievable. Dumbledore now realized that they had again made another grievous mistake.

Dumbledore's face now looked very grim as the implications of their bad judgment started forming in his head. The only thing he could do now was to prepare himself to duel the beast. Severus had better come up with a game plan very soon, or that bloody snake was going to pulverize him. Dumbledore noticed Potter getting up rather slowly. Perhaps the hounds had hurt him far more than he thought. One could only hope. The more he looked at Potter the more alarms started going off in his head. Something was off but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Severus was cursing the brat to nine kinds of hell. Where the fuck did the brat learn dark magic? He was pissed. Now he had a bloody Basilisk coming for him. He immediately conjured a series of walls. His rising panic however was affecting the quality of his obstacles. He cast _Exsilium-Alcyon / Adicio-Lancea /Reducto-Maxim _

A slew of lances landed on the large snake and seemed to slow it down, blood was seeping out of the beast, but it was still coming full force. The banishing charm seemed to only anger it and his explosion hex missed completely. The snake suddenly lunged to take a bite of Snape but just as the beast was about to nip him, he rolled to his left and cast his explosion hex point blank on the snakes left flank, which connected and gouged a large hole on the beast's side.

A large spray of blood and tissue now covered his robe. Severus quickly realized that his victory was short lived. The moment he was back on his feet the snake's tail caught him in the rib cage and he heard a loud crack and felt himself lifted off his feet. He flew a good twenty feet in the air and landed on his side with his left hand underneath him. He landed very badly and felt another sharp pain in his wrist. Severus was not having a good day at all.

The snake thinking that his prey was down went after the other man standing on his master's territory. He lunged for Dumbledore. Dumbledore with grim determination and a lifetime of learning cast _Rumpere-Anima –Copula / Fulgor-Inis-Cavea /Reducto-Maxim. _The spells were very powerful and draining. The first spell hit its target and the Basilisk started glowing a sick yellowish color. The first spell was used to dissociate the molecular bonds from a living creature transfigured from inanimate matter. The second spell was a lightning cage, which immobilized most creatures.

The creature stopped in its track as if caught in a web. With the molecular bonds severely weakened the explosion hex caught the creature in the head and managed to pulverize the top third section of the snake. It went down and slowly turned back to sand. Now Dumbledore could only hope that Potter didn't transfigure another one of the bloody beasts. He had at least taken care of the snake for Severus. Potter was still standing at the other end of the pitch moving his wand. No spells seemed to come out of his wand however. Maybe he was setting up wards, but even he should be able to see some sort of energy discharge. Suddenly his eyes widened and finally caught on to what was happening. That's when he saw Potter grab Severus' wand.

Meanwhile, Severus had managed to get back to his feet painfully and thanking the fates that Albus had managed to destroy the beast, he noticed Potter at the other and immediately cast a slew of explosion hexes, acid clouds, silver darts and a multitude of Crucio. The brat was dodging most of his curse when one managed to hit him directly in the chest and blew a hole in his stomach. The brat looked up in surprise and toppled on his back. The crowd suddenly went quiet. One could only hear the sound of the wind. Severus thinking he had won, cast a sonorous charm and yelled, "You see! Potter is nothing but a weak pathetic brat."

At that moment Harry was now standing two feet from Snape and with cat like reflex he reached out and snatched Snape's wand. Harry then silently cast _Gaz-Pahal-Edakua_ to his left leg and heard a scream of pure agony. Harry had just pulverized the tibia and fibula bones in his left leg. Snape dropped to the ground screaming. Harry suddenly made himself visible and heard the insane screams coming from the bleachers. He looked towards Neville and smirked. Neville simply raised his eyebrow.

With a sneer on his face, Harry levitated Snape so that he was standing up and facing him. Harry closed the gap and whispered, "So Snivellus, how does the leg feel? Once again Snape, you got the shit kicked out of you by a Potter. You know what they say, cream always floats on top and shit sinks to the bottom. Do you think I spend my time caring what you or the goat fucker is up too, ummh? The truth Snivellus is that you just aren't worth my time. You are just another fucking death eater who needs to go. By the way how do you like the new me?"

Harry suddenly broke Snape's wand in two. To everyone's shock, he took one of the broken ends and stabbed it into Snape's shoulder. While he screamed, Harry with no mercy whatsoever delivered at full strength a roundhouse punch directly to his lower jaw and heard another crunch. Snape's jaw was now gushing with blood and was hanging at a weird angle. Harry was about to punch again when he felt a bludgeoning curse hit him on his right leg and he dropped with a scream. He could feel the sharp pain in his leg. From where the pain was shooting up, he was pretty sure that he had a large hairline fracture to his femur. The curse would have shattered his leg for sure had it not been for the alterations he did to his bones with the Naquadah potion he took during summer.

Harry immediately rolled around and with his aura reading capability saw four layered spells coming towards him from Dumbledore's position. He recognized the signatures and hissed _Nisi-šen-šen_ and an emerald shield sprang around him. The spells hit the dome and were absorbed. This particular shield fed on magical energy. It was the equivalent to Aikido from muggle martial arts. It used the opponent's own strength against them. Harry was about to deliver a counter attack when he saw a slew of magical signatures whiz by.

Neville was in full swing. He had been waiting for Dumbledore to step out of line and was now on a massive offensive. He set three sets of layered spells. He layered a confundus, acid cloud, plasma ball, and explosion curses in a close triangular pattern. The effects were surprising. Dumbledore had managed to neutralize most of his hexes except for a Reducto and a plasma ball, which burnt his left hand very badly. One of his Reducto spells spell ended up connecting within a foot of his legs and the concussion wave was enough to break a leg bone. Neville was about to go for the kill when a loud thunderclap rang in the air and a very pissed off Madame Hooch ran into the field and bellowed, "All duellers are to cease and desist immediately! Anyone breaking anymore-duelling laws will be convicted against the 1469 Austrian convention on duelling protocol."

No one moved until Harry slowly got up and started hobbling towards his end of the pitch. Once he was in front of Neville he said, "Thanks for your help mate. Had you not been there, I think Dumbledore would have had a full go at me. I believe you seriously injured him brother. The fucker should think twice about messing with us now."

Neville replied, "I was just about ready to send the heart explosion curse when Hooch stopped us. I must say, I feel pretty good right now. Congratulations on pulverizing Snape by the way. Even if the outcome was already written in stone, it was a kick ass duel. You absolutely need to show me how to conjure a bloody big Basilisk. I nearly shit my pants when I saw your critter come out of the box." Neville had a huge smirk on his face.

Harry suddenly broke down laughing. Maybe it was stress relief or finally taking the fight against Dumbledore's minions but it sure felt good smashing the fools. Harry turned to his right and saw Chilli Pepper and the Beaver going to help Dumbledore. As they passed by they looked toward Neville and him and gave them a scathing look. Hopefully a little demonstration of his power should keep them in line for a while longer.

Harry with Neville at his side, made their way to the castle. They reached Myrtle's bathroom and portkeyed to the lair. It didn't take long for the troops to arrive and celebrate. Like him it seemed as if a hurdle had been passed. Luna ran to Neville and gave him a huge French kiss. Not too far behind, Xiana ran to him and gave him a hug and bellowed, "You scared the hell out of me. Jesus, how the hell do you get in these situations anyway?"

Harry frowned and replied, "Potter luck I guess?" Harry expected a sound verbal trashing but instead she just hugged him and kissed him again. Harry smiled and made his way to the salt baths. Xiana followed him until he was resting into the healing bath and cast a few healing spells on his injured leg.

The salt bath took care of the rest. Just for good measure he asked Xiana if she could go to the trunk manor by the lake and get some of his bone strengthening potions in stasis in his potions lab. Xiana went and fetched the potions. Harry took a restorative and his bone potion and then relaxed in the bath. Harry not realizing the time fell asleep while listening to light classical music. After about two hours Xiana awakened him. She had a huge smirk on her face and told him to get out of the bath. She nearly passed out from laughing when she noticed that his whole body looked like a huge prune.

Harry made a face at her and quickly apparated to the trunk manor. He quickly took a shower and then got himself a fresh set of clothes. He cleaned his battle robe and affixed his katana to his back, and then apparated back to the lair. His leg no longer hurt and he felt completely refreshed. He had a feeling that it was going to be another long night.

Harry met up with everyone and they decided to have supper at the lair. It didn't take long for Bill and Ginny to show up. The moment they did Harry went over to them and said, "Tonight is the night. If everything goes according to plan, Snape will be at our mercy. Everything is ready at Potter castle. You guys have the final kill, I just want some quality time to break the bastard and suck all pertinent information from his demented mind."

Bill replied, "No problems Harry, as long as we get to kill the bastard."

Harry said, "I hope you take your time, that bastard has a lot of pain coming to him from a lot of people."

Ginny smiled and said, "Don't worry Harry. I've been planning my revenge for a while now. All I can tell you is that it's going to be interesting. "

Harry nodded and led them to the dining table. Everyone was gathered and feeding on the awesome spread that his elves had provided. Harry was talking to all of his ex mentors and getting caught up in all of their research. Xiana for herself was enthralled with the potions master's new research on member regeneration.

The potion was based on the DNA memory capacity of the Polyjuice potion. The research centered on having an injured wizard or witch takes a drastically modified Polyjuice potion restorative to re-grow lost limbs. The potential was enormous. The restorative potion would also fix any physical deficiency such as scars, lost eyes and cursed organs. Moody had already volunteered as a test subject with bated anticipation. If it worked, he would be back to his old self.

Finally after supper was done, Harry had gathered all the troops to bring them up to speed on the latest development. He talked about the upcoming Vampire, Veela and Goblin meetings. He had the necessary contact teams update them on their research. He had also established a Horcrux research team comprising Remus, Theo and Luna. His weapons division now had the twins, Neville and himself along with his charms masters.

Bill told Harry that the charities were coming along very nicely. The new wizard orphanage would be up and running within the February time line. Harry couldn't wait to see it. No expense or protection would be spared. Harry planned on putting his most powerful wards on the orphanage. Anyone whishing to hurt the children would meet a most gruesome death. In his book, attacking babies and children that was the vilest crime imaginable. The only penalty for such a crime was excruciating death.

The Lycanthrope center was also moving along very well. According to Bill, it should be up and running by springtime. They were making slow but steady progress. Recruiting was also going very well. Tonks told Harry that many old students from the DA club were extremely dissatisfied with Ron and Hermione's leadership. Many had quit and were asking about him. Tonks told him she had discretely asked many of them where their political loyalties were and what they thought of Dumbledore. To his shock most of them hated the ministry and couldn't care less about Dumbledore.

Most of them wanted to know if he was allied with the Scorpion Sorcerer and wanted to know what he stood for. So far, most of them were opting for something new, something that resonated with their views and politics. They hated the status quo, and to Harry that was very good new indeed. Odin's Eye was getting a hell of a lot of use. Mad Eye had suggested a few things that they might want to add to the training regiment but overall he was extremely impressed with the depth of training. Harry couldn't remember seeing the ex Auror so happy.

The man seemed to be smiling a lot more. He had congratulated Harry on the innovative use of transfiguration and rune magic. Harry capped off the meeting with a financial review of their war chest and their spending. Amazingly enough, even with all of their spending the war account was growing at a phenomenal rate. The accrued interest was working wonders. Harry brought forth a list of spending priorities, which was voted on by the war council. More money was going to be spent on materials and battle equipment. When they were done, they broke into groups for happy hour. The games room and bar were opened and everyone began mingling. All work and no play made Jack a dull boy, Harry thought. After Xiana's breakdown, Harry now felt that scheduled down time whither they needed it or not was necessary.

Everyone relaxed and played games late into the night when Harry looked at his watch and realized that it was time for him to go fetch his favorite potions professor. Harry called Bill and Ginny and told him to meet him at Potter castle in half an hour. Harry concentrated on the predetermined coordinates and found himself in the corner behind an illusion ward. Harry took out his wand and scanned the area to see who was present. Harry noticed a couple of first years and a fifth year Hufflepuff lying about sleeping. He then looked to his right and found Snape asleep in his bed. Harry made sure that Pomfrey was also indisposed and made his way towards Snape's bed. Harry stopped about midway and cast several revealing charms on the bed. Sure enough, there were a couple of wards set up. Harry carefully identified the wards and took them down.

Harry turned around and cast a sleeping spell on the other students. He turned back towards Snape and noticed that the man seemed to be in pain. Well he thought Skele-Grow could do that to a person. He ought to know. He hadn't forgotten his second year at good old Hoggy Hogwarts. He stupefied Snape and then threw a portkey at him. He then tapped the portkey and the man disappeared. Harry couldn't very well go without leaving his calling card. Harry transfigured a dozen small scorpions and put them where Snape had been. He then cast a repelling ward around the bed to make sure that the scorpions stayed put. Harry would love to see Dumbledore's face come morning.

Harry decided to have a quick look at the infirmary. Harry passed by a cabinet of potions and healing books. He picked up a few of the books and noticed how old they were and whom the author was. To his surprise, the person who had written the book was Morganna Potter. He would have to check her out when he got back home. He should have a copy of her book back in the family library.

Harry passed by a muggle cabinet, which to his surprise had muggle medical implements. There were needles, gauze rolls, some antiseptic, different types of antibiotics and some slim implements which he did not recognize until he read the name. Harry suddenly narrowed his eyes and whispered, "Perfect!" He unlocked the cabinet door and picked up several of the muggle instruments. He would have to modify them for what he had in mind, but creativity was a quality he highly prized.

Harry apparated out of Hogwarts infirmary back to Potter castle dungeons. He found himself in the same room where the Malfoys had been. He found Snape crumpled on the floor and levitated him against the wall. He shackled him and took away his shoes. He made sure to remove items he found on his body. He ended up confiscating three portkeys, which were useless anyway but he didn't know that. The wards he had set up were dark wards and would prevent anyone not keyed into the wards form magically transporting in or out of the castle.

He also ended up confiscating a couple vials of potions, which he guessed to be poisons of sorts. Harry double-checked his torture cabinets to make sure everything was in place, and then made sure that the magical fires in the ovens were nice and blue, and that the freezing charms were working properly. Harry noticed that there were a few potions cauldrons set up by the smiting ovens. Harry smirked and realized that these must be Ginny's. She had quite the twisted mind, that one. Harry approached the table and noticed that many ingredients were on the table. He looked at many of them and winced. Harry almost had pity for Snape. The key word there was almost. Well he thought everything seems to be in order. Time to fetch the cavalry.

Harry was about to go up to the living room when two figures walked into the Dungeon. Harry saw Bill and Ginny enter. The twins followed them in. Harry said, "Are you all ready?"

Bill replied for all of them when he said, "You have no idea Harry."

"Good, now keep your hoods on, until I reveal myself to the greasy bastard. I want to see his face when he finally realises whom the Scorpion Sorcerer is."

They went to see Snape immobilized in chains and Harry cast _Ennevate_and then_ Lumos. _Snape woke woozy and hard to turn his head from the bright light that was hurting his eyes. He looked to his right hand to find it shackled to a wall. The first set of questions which came to his mind was where the hell was he and why was it so fucking cold. He finally found his voice and said, "Where the hell am I and who are you?"

Snape found the light extinguished and could now see the blue magical fire from what appeared to be an open pit oven could also see the low-level blue flame torch burning along the wall. He looked up to see wet looking Stalactites dripping cold water. He saw five figures looking at him. Suddenly one of the figures approached him and said, with a voice that seemed to radiate about as much warmth as an iceberg, "Welcome home Snape!"

Snape finally looked at the man and noticed the bright neon green orbs looking at him. His eyes seemed as bright as a green flame torch. The fire in them was mesmerizing. Finally he found his voice and said, "Who are you? Where is this place?"

"I suppose you have a right to know whom your executioners are going to be. As for where you are, you can consider this the house of pain. Consider this place a short pit stop, before you reach your real home. "

Snape was now fully panicked and with his voice croaking said, "What is this home you speak of?"

There was no response for a few seconds until Harry said, "Hell of course. You didn't actually think that you were going to get away with the murders you have committed since serving your true master. "

Snape was having a horrible time keeping his emotions in check and managed to say, "What are you talking about. You have made a horrible mistake. I haven't killed anyone. I demand to know who you are!"

Harry waved his hand and yellow torches suddenly came to life, the brightness of the room increased considerably. Harry suddenly hissed, _zi-pà -ñír-tab_. Suddenly a huge twenty-foot long scorpion materialized in front of Snape. Harry made the scorpion move his stinger within six inches of Snape's face. Harry could see beads of sweat forming on the man's forehead and said, "Perhaps my little pet has given you some idea of whom I am? I believe from your reaction that you have heard of the Scorpion Sorcerer?"

Severus was now scared beyond anything he had ever felt in his life. The Dark Lord had not scared him as much as he was right now. That was perhaps because he always felt that his potions master's skills were always useful to the Dark Lord. This was certainly not the cast here. Severus narrowed his eyes and said, "I recognize you attire and I don't know anyone who can conjure such a dark beast therefore I have no choice but to believe that you are the Scorpion Sorcerer, however that doesn't tell me whom you really are."

Harry approached him and when he was within three feet of his face said, "You are quite right. It is high time that you found out who your executioners were." With that Harry lifter his hood and was quite pleased to see Snape's reaction. He turned to his mates and said, nodded at them. They in turn brought down their hoods. Snape by then was having an apoplectic seizure.

Snape finally managed to bellow, "Impossible!"

Harry sneered and said, "Why do you think it's impossible? Is it because I am the spawn of your most hated enemy and a Gryffindor to boot? You bloody people, you just can't help yourself labelling everybody. Oh, he is a Gryffindor, therefore he must be brash, bold and doesn't think before getting into situations. Wow look at him he's a Slytherin, so he must be cunning, and sly. You think that people being sorted into a house makes up the sum total of who they are. You've been following the goat fucker for far too long Snape. It seems to have idled your wits. As much as I despise Dumbledore, he is irrelevant. Don't deny it Snape, we both know that your true master is the Dark Lord, isn't it?" Harry could see a deep-seated fear starting to show on his face.

Severus was simply shocked. He needed to get out of here and inform Dumbledore. There were so many questions in his mind that he couldn't pinpoint where to start. It seems the Phoenix Order has been compromised beyond his wildest dreams. He had to hand it to Potter. He had fooled and screwed them all royally. Salazar Slytherin himself would be proud. Now that he thought about it, he had never seen the Scorpion Sorcerer and Potter at the same time. His second clue was the wand. He now remembered the shiny looking wand when he had seen the Scorpion Sorcerer fight the death eaters back in Surrey at his muggle relations place. Severus was brought back from his musing.

"What! Caught got your tongue?" Harry spat.

Harry banished the scorpion and continued, "Just so you know, I saw in Malfoy's mind that it was you who suggested that your master to kill Charlie Weasley. Just so you know, I considered him an older brother of sorts. Mind you, the people behind me knew him as an actual blood brother. You didn't honestly think that you would get away with this, did you? Another reason, you are here is for us to extract your many dark mysteries Snivellus. As a double agent, you must hold many secrets from both sides of the chessboard. I assure you, one way or another we will find out the truth. "

Snape started laughing. He finally looked at Harry and said, "I have managed to survive Dark Lord and you think that you stand a chance of breaking me? I have known more torture than you can possibly imagine. You are just a little bastard with delusions of being the next Dark Lord, so do your best little boy."

"We'll see." Was all Harry said? He turned around to the rest of the Weasleys and said, "He is yours. Please don't kill him until I've had a chance to look into his mind." Harry then walked out of the Dungeon cell to go work on his little project.

Bill watched Harry leave and he slowly approached Snape until he was within striking distance. Without any warning, Bill backhanded him as hard as he could. Blood immediately started gushing out of the potions master's nose. Bill then began to beat the shit out of the man until he passed out. When he was done, Bill cast several healing charms on Snape and gave him some healing potions.

Fred approached Snape and said, "Well George, I believe it's time for us to use our Genius for the greater good, what do you think?"

"Smashing idea old boy. I think it's time to test the war box." George replied.

Fred turned to his brother and with an evil smirk said, "The war box, you say? Well I can't think of a better person to try it on."

George went and fetched two boxes from one of their packs. He then looked at Snape and said, "We have spent the last two weeks developing a new line of torture pranks we call PPP. By the way that stands for puss, pestilence and pain. Mind you we haven't' tried them on anyone yet. We think you would make a fantastic test subject old boy. "

Fred agreed, "Yes, the perfect test subject." Fred opened the box and pulled out a black looking toffee. He then pinched Snape's nose to force him to breath by the mouth. Fred gave Snape his first candy, and took out a notepad to record observations. It didn't take long for purple looking boils to appear on his body. The boils grew until they exploded and released a very acidic puss. Snape started screaming in pain. The boils kept appearing for about ten minutes.

George for his part pulled out a green looking pastille and fed it to Snape. Within minutes Snape began having terrible flatulence which caused localized acid gas to emanate. Snape began wheezing as his flatulence began burning the inner lining of his lungs.

Severus for his part felt as if he had been branded and forced to breathe molten lava. Over the next two hours, he had been subjected to snakes growing out of his head and biting him, horns piercing his skin, and other types of pustules with different pain characteristics. They finally capped off their session by conjuring an invisible bubble on his head and placing doxins in it. Snape screamed as the little critters attacked his face. The bytes were very painful and poisonous. The poison was necrotic dissolved bits of flesh at each byte site. As he was screaming, Fred and George got on either side of him cast the Crucio spell repeatedly.

Fred finally said, "Hope you enjoy your time in hell."

"I second the motion." George replied.

For his part Severus could barely think as he was in such pain. He would have never predicted in a million years that his end would come about like this. It had all come down to bloody Harry Potter. After hours of repeated torture at the hands of the Weasley boys he had been left alone for about an hour.

Just as her brothers were finishing her potions were almost ready. She was just finishing putting the final touches on her Lethifold, and the _Fusilis-Aetna_ blood potion. The Lethifold potion finished off as a gel. The gel when applied to skin would slowly eat and digest the skin away. It was supposed to be extremely dark and painful potion. The blood potion also known, as the larva potion would cause the person to feel as thought they were burning up from the inside out.

Ginny scooped up several cups of the Lethifold gel and sauntered towards Snape. She noticed that her brother's had done a respectable job on him but decided to heal him a bit. She cast several healing charms and pain relieving spells. She had learned a lot of healing magic from Fleur. After a few rounds of enervate, Snape seemed to be fully awake.

Snape looked up so see the young Weasley trollop looking at him with what he could only describe as cold malice in her eyes. Severus sneered, "What do you want you little cum trough!" He spat. Ginny recoiled at his foul language and without warning she kicked him in the balls. Snape dropped but was still being held by his chains. He was now coughing trying to breathe.

"Mind your manners Snape. You'll be glad to know that not all of your pain will be coming from silly wand waving as you so eloquently called it in your first year speech. The day I found out you were the one responsible for Charlie's death, I have been thinking of ways to get you back. Then I thought why not use potions? Since you loved them so much in life, let's see what you think of them in your torture." Ginny said.

She first petrified him and then removed the top of his robes. She looked at his flabby white skin with disgust. She put a Dragon skin glove on her left hand, and dipped her middle finger in the gel. She then wrote MURDERER on his skin in big bold letters. She then fed him the potion and watched as he started to scream in earnest.

Severus was panting and reeling from the pain. He didn't know how much more he could take. Several attempts had been made by the oldest Weasley to enter his mind. He had fought them off, but he now realized that his shields had been weakening bit by bit. No doubt preparing him for Potter's assault.

Early into the morning hours, Harry walked back into the dungeon and got his first view of Snape. Harry was very pleased with the results. It seemed that some well-deserved retribution had been dished out. Harry walked towards Bill and said, "Any progress yet?"

Bill looked very disappointed and replied, " I'm afraid not Harry. I must say I'm very impressed with his shields. I don't know what else to do. I can't think of any else to dish out."

Harry turned towards Snape and narrowed his eyes. He then turned back to Bill and replied, "I think we need to increase the pain threshold, what do you think?"

Bill frowned and replied, "Like I said, Harry I don't know what to do."

Bill noticed that Harry's face took on a psychotic look to it. Lucifer himself couldn't have been more menacing. Harry pulled out a small looking contraction, with a length of tube hanging out of it. Bill had no idea what it was. Harry walked towards Snape and said, "Well, fuck face, how was your night. You wouldn't believe the peaceful sleep I had."

Snape spit in his face and whispered, "Fuck you to hell Potter."

Harry with pure venom replied, "No, I'm afraid you'll be the one fucking in hell."

Harry whipped out his wand and cast _Abeo-Vestitus_ and made Snape's clothes disappear to Bill's shock. The twins and Ginny were now watching Harry. The next spell to hit Snape was Exstructio-Penis. Suddenly Snape had a full erection of his penis. The next spell to hit him was _Intercalo- specillum_. The device flew out of his hand and inserted itself inside his penis.

Bill came over with the rest of the Weasley's and said, "Harry, how is that contraption supposed to bring him to the next level of pain?"

Harry looked at Bill and reached in his pocket and handed him another one of the contraptions. While Bill was examining it Harry said, "This is what muggles call a Catheter. It's a device used in muggle medicine to help relieve patients of urine while they are in a deep sleep or a coma. I have modified it to suit my needs. Do you see all of the little slits and holes on the outside of the tube?"

Bill looked at Harry and said, "Well now that you mention it, yah I see all kinds of them. What are they for?"

Harry smirked and replied, "Follow the end of the plastic tubing, you'll see a little button. Push it."

The Weasleys all looked at Harry with curiosity and Bill did as Harry asked. The moment he pushed the button, sharp little spikes and small constantina blades suddenly popped out of the surface of the device. The Weasleys suddenly caught on and the boys felt a strong need to sit down. They were looking at Harry with their mouths open.

Fred and George looked at each other and bellowed, "Holy shit Harry! You don't fuck around do you?"

Bill looked at Ginny and said, "Are you sure you want to see this. I've already allowed you to see more than you should."

"Bill you are talking about a girl who has six brothers. Don't you think that in the course of my life I haven't seen you little manhood at one point or another? Believe me, I'm not seeing anything I haven't seen before. Now shall we get on with this?" she said to her brothers.

Billed shrugged and said, "Harry, do you need any help?"

"No I should be all right. You may want to position yourself. When I'm done be ready to kill him."

Snape meanwhile looked down at himself, and couldn't suppress the shivers racking his body. He couldn't tell if it was the air, the fact that he was in so much pain or the fact that the end was near. He looked at Potter with his glowing green orbs coming towards him and the face that met him was so cold, that even the Dark Lord would shiver looking at it.

Harry took out his wand and tightened his chains so that his limbs were fully extended. He then took the end of tube and pushed the button. Snape bit his lip to prevent himself from screaming. Harry began pulling on the tube. Snape couldn't hold it anymore. He arched his back and let out a blood-curling scream. The inside of his penis was being ripped apart by the contraption. Blood was flowing down his leg.

Harry dropped the tube and opened Snape's eyes with his thumb, and brought forth his full Legillimens powers to bear. Bill was pretty good at it, but Harry was a master. Harry was now hammering Snape's weakened shields. The image he gave Snape was that of a muggle submarine sinking down into the ocean depths until the water pressure crushed it like a can. Harry pictured his attack like the ocean depths. Bit by bit, Snape's Occlumency shields began to crack. Due to his extreme pain and fatigue, the pressure was simply too much to resist and shields finally imploded. Harry quickly sped to the deepest recesses of his memory and started downloading any bits of information that were significant.

Harry was almost done when he noticed a particular memory that caught his attention. He followed the thread and soon found himself watching a young Snape in a bar facing Dumbledore and Sybil Trelawney. He was seeing the day the prophecy was made. Dumbledore had Snape immobilized and was telling him that he was going to get the Dementor's kiss for his crimes as a death eater. Snape made a deal that night to become a spy for his order promising him to pass important information on the Dark Lord's plans and attacks. He sealed the deal on his magic. That night Dumbledore found out who the spy was in the order. Dumbledore knew Pettigrew was the spy all along.

Dumbledore sacrificed his parents. Dumbledore was also the one telling him to divulge a part of the prophecy to the Dark Lord. It was on Snape's words that the Dark Lord went after them. Dumbledore could have been their secret keeper but he knew Pettigrew was a traitor. It was him who planted the seeds of doubt into Black's head so that Black would switch.

Dumbledore knew if his parents died, his hatred for the Dark Lord would drive him to destroy him. He also knew that by placing him with the muggles, instead of letting his Godfather take like he should have according to his parents will. Dumbledore had done this to make him more pliable. He knew Harry would be grateful to be rescued from them and happy to do whatever he asked.

Dumbledore couldn't risk him growing up with his Godfather, even if it was his parent's wish. Dumbledore felt that his Godfather would go dark like the rest of his family, and take the only chance at defeating the Dark Lord with him. Dumbledore orchestrated that night at Halloween to the last detail. He had planned every movement of his life since then. He was the one who had given mother the book on blood charms almost a year before, just after he was born. Dumbledore knew she would read it and use it. He alone knew the full prophecy and he used it in the worst possible way. Dumbledore deprived him of his parents, his childhood, and his life until he decided to take control of his life.

Harry pulled out of Snape's head viciously and bellowed at the top of his lungs, "**DUMBLEDOORRRREEE!**" Harry moved away from Snape and nodded his head at the Weasleys. Four AVADA KADAVRA shot towards Snape. Severus Snape saw the green lights shooting towards him and welcomed it. The moments the green lights hit, he was gone.

Bill came rushing to Harry and said, "What did you see Harry?"

Harry turned towards Bill and seething with rage, and explained everything he had seen in Snape's memories. They all stood gaping like fish. They all wanted Dumbledore's head on a platter. Bill had to admit it. The old fucker was a master manipulator. Bill now knew that Dumbledore was finished. His days were numbered and his death would be the most gruesome of all. They all looked at Harry and he had that looked they had seen in him when he was completely pissed. Harry wanted retribution, and he was not going to be denied.

Harry looked at Snape's dead body and spit on it. Harry took out a ring and pictured the great hall at Hogwarts. He timed the portkey to activate at breakfast time tomorrow morning. He hung the portkey around Snape's neck and then turned towards the Weasleys and said, "I'll be back later to take care of him. I have some payback to be dishing out."

Harry was turned and started walking when he heard Bill say, "Thanks for everything Harry. We couldn't have done it without you. Charlie has been avenged. Be careful Harry."

Harry stopped but didn't turn around. He simply nodded and kept going. Bill turned around and said, "Ginny go find Remus and explain everything that happened these last eight hours. I need to find Fleur. Fred and George, I'll meet you at the lair later this afternoon. "

Fred replied, "Bill, what do you think Harry is going to do?"

Bill replied, "I don't know, but I would not want to be in Dumbledore's shoes right now. What ever he does, it's going to be equal to the crime that much I know. "The Weasleys left the dungeon looking tired and weary. Bill reflected that they now needed time to put everything into perspective. They now had to find a way to deal with their demons the way Harry dealt with his.


	17. Chapter 16 The End of an Era Part 2

**Chapter 16 "The End of An Era Part 2"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

_Yay I got a beta!!! All my dear readers, I have finally officially got a beta reader for the story. I am not perfect and I was unwilling to change the writing style at the beginning. It will most likely happen now and I will make sure that the story is way more enjoyable now. _

_Let me present my beta reader - dey1234_

Harry walked out of the dungeon with no particular destination in mind. He was beyond angry. He was boiling with pure hatred. The depth of Dumbledore's betrayal went beyond anything he ever imagined. Without realizing it, Harry apparated to the gazebo on the west side of Potter Castle facing the sea. The wind was bitter cold with heavy snowfall. Harry didn't notice any of it. He was completely absorbed with Snape's memories and the new information it contained. He began to realize how much Dumbledore had manipulated the prophecy. He had betrayed his parents in the worst way before he was even born.

Was the Wizarding world that corrupt, he wondered? Just about everyone he had ever met who had a position of power over him had been corrupt and manipulative. Did he even want to save the Wizarding world anymore? It sure seemed to have its fair share of corrupted individuals and cowards. He then remembered reading Napoleon's chronicles and Hitler's rise to power and concluded that there was very little difference between the muggle and Wizarding world. Corruption, dissimulation, hate and greed seemed to be a constant in either world.

Harry looked out towards the sea and noticed in the distance the huge storm whipping and stirring its surface. He could see large waves and angry white caps frothing on the surface. He could feel the bitter cold wind and the ice pellets whipping against his face. Harry didn't seem to care though. He let the elements beat him down. He slowly drifted deeper within himself unaware of his surroundings. Harry went into a deep trance and started sifting and cataloguing all the information he had amassed over the last week.

Harry began focusing on all the knowledge he had accumulated over the last five months. He reviewed every one of his mental folders and made sure he resealed every folder with his magical imprint. He then reviewed his mental defences and spent some time reinforcing his shields with his magic. He reviewed his mental defence mechanisms and made sure, they were at peak condition. Unknown to Harry, the stress of his training, battles and leading his troops had tired his body and magic and triggered his second magical maturity.

Wizards and witches went through three magical maturing processes. The largest power increase occurred during the first maturity, which was between the ages of twelve to eighteen. The second maturing occurred between the ages of thirty to forty. The second maturing not only increased a wizards or witches power, but more importantly it refined their magic. During their second maturity, a person's magical energy became purer and more refined. The comparison was similar to a flash light versus laser light. This allowed wizards and witches to gain precise control of their magic. A person's spells came easier, and became more focused.

The third and final stage of magical maturity occurred much later in life somewhere around eighty to ninety years of age. The final stage allowed the body to more readily accepts core magical energy in order to help regenerate and sustain its functions. This explained why witches and wizards lived much longer lives then muggles. Harry however, was unaware of any of these facts. He was lost in his thoughts, much of which kept coming back to Albus Dumbledore.

**Early Morning November 11 Hogwarts Infirmary**

Poppy Pomfrey had always been an early riser. This was a blessing in disguise since her duties, as Hogwarts healer often required her to make early rounds to check on her patients. Just this morning she needed to check on the surly potions master. His injuries had been quite severe. She tried to interrogate the headmaster about the duel, but he was less than forthcoming. She herself didn't particularly care for the old coot, but she loved Hogwarts and the kids. This had become her home and she felt safe here. She got along very well with most of the teaching staff.

Poppy walked towards her potions cabinet and picked up some more nutritive potions and went to see how Severus was doing. She was pretty sure that the Skele-Grow potions would have been quite painful. She had to remove all of the small bone debris in his leg and re-grow both major bones. She slowly made her way to his bed but noticed that he was missing. Blast that man, she thought, who does he think he is, leaving her infirmary like that? As she approached his bed, her eyes suddenly grew wide and accidentally dropped her potions. She did the only thing that came to her mind. She screamed like a banshee.

Minerva had been passing the infirmary on her way to the great hall when she heard a scream, which sounded like Poppy. She immediately drew her wand and bolted towards the doors. She came crashing through the doors and found Poppy pulling her wand on her. Minerva stopped and lowered her wand to indicate that she meant no threat. Poppy noticed that it was her old friend Minerva and she in turn lowered her wand.

Minerva was the first to find her voice and said, "Poppy, why in the world were you screaming like that? I thought you were getting raped for crying out loud."

Poppy replied, "I'm sorry if I frightened you, but seeing a bunch of scorpions in Severus's bed kind of freaked me out. Maybe you can tell me if you've met Severus this morning and he confessed to some sort of sick prank on his part."

Minerva looked at the scorpions and instantly paled. Oh God, if this is what she thought it was, than Severus was in deep trouble. She had to inform Albus immediately. She looked at Poppy and said

"Please stay here Poppy and make sure no one disturbs the bed, I'll go get Albus right away. I have a bad feeling that the Scorpion Sorcerer left us his calling card."

At the mention of the Scorpion Sorcerer, Poppy blanched and conjured herself a chair to sit on. She didn't trust her legs to keep her standing. The very thought that this person could come into Hogwarts and abduct one of her patients under her nose was simply frightening. She recalled her earlier comments of feeling safe and Hogwarts and felt that maybe she needed to reassess her situation.

Meanwhile, back in the headmaster's office, Albus Dumbledore was pacing back and forth looking very contrite. Albus had also wakened early due to a severe bout of insomnia. He was busy going over yesterday's battle, and was now convinced that Potter was somehow working for this Scorpion Sorcerer. The boy is definitely into very advanced combat magic. Albus now knew he had severely underestimated the brat.

The part that was frustrating him was the time element. Even with lots of talent, one still needed time to properly study and practice the spells. One summer was simply not enough time to learn the level of magic that Potter had demonstrated. For one thing, his wand was monitored for magic outside of Hogwarts. Second, the boy had to deal with his relatives who hated magic. He had made sure of that. Even, if he had managed to circumvent the other two obstacles, he still needed the time to learn. Finally, the level of duelling expertise he had shown simply couldn't be learned from books alone that much he was certain of. The brat was quickly becoming a much bigger menace then he ever imagined. Potter had managed to completely humiliate Severus and by proxy himself during the duel.

The other thing that was bothering him was the level of power, speed and sheer violence that Longbottom had shown yesterday. Here was another brat he had severely underestimated. Albus simply couldn't understand it. The blocks he had placed on him should have prevented him from displaying that level of magic. Unable to contain his frustration and anger he picked one of his dark art detectors and hurled it at the door. Albus instantly regretted his loss of control and he could already hear the portraits berating him. He walked to his chair and crashed in it. He could already feel the start of another migraine. He was really starting to hate Potter. Albus suddenly felt a slight buzz in his right hand telling that one of his teachers was on his way. The headmaster's perimeter wards gave him different signals depending on who was outside the gargoyles. He recalled the feeling he would get on his butt every time a ministry official showed up. Magic was such a wonderful thing, he mused.

Albus saw his transfiguration teacher barging in his office with a worried look on her face. Even with her age, she was still a very beautiful woman. He would never forgive himself for never even attempting to tame her shrew. Alas here was another one of his many mistakes. Who wants to tame a shrew when you need a wand to get your other wand to stay up? Albus shook his head to release his naughty thoughts and said, "Minerva what seems to be the problem?"

Minerva clutched her chest trying to get her breathing to slow down. She finally looked up at Albus and his stupid twinkling eyes and replied, "Albus, I just came back from the infirmary. Severus is gone, and his bed was full of small scorpions. I talked to Poppy, and she assured me that she heard nothing last night. She woke up to do her rounds and found his bed empty. I just happened to pass by the infirmary when I heard her scream. Once I found the scorpions in his bed, I came here right away. I think the Scorpion Sorcerer may have kidnapped Severus."

Minerva saw all the color drain from his face and his twinkle die immediately. Minerva could feel the rage and power emanating from him. Albus looked up at her and said, "Let's go talk to Poppy. There must be some other clues left behind besides the Scorpions. I can't believe that Severus could be abducted under our very noses. We need to implement level three security immediately."

With that, Albus quickly left his office followed by Minerva. They made their way back to the infirmary and met up with Poppy in order to get more information. That proved to be an empty gesture since she had no clue as to how the crime could have been committed. Albus for his part began casting a slew of obscure spells until he found what he was looking for just below the painting of Alcazar the magnificent.

Albus looked at them and said, "Whoever they were, they used a dark type of disillusion ward. They must have been lying in wait the whole time waiting for the right time to strike. This had to be a coordinated effort with help from the inside. This clearly shows that this Scorpion Sorcerer has recruits inside of Hogwarts."

Minerva looked into his eyes, "What are we going to do Albus? The whole school may be compromised if he has our students helping him. God knows what information he has on us. He may know our schedules, habits and who knows what else. This is very bad Albus."

Albus narrowed his eyes and a plan began to formulate in his brain. What he needed to do was illegal but he absolutely had to find and expunge his nemesis' power base from Hogwarts. Albus finally whispered, "I think I may have a plan. It may go against ministry decree but I'm sure you realize that we can no longer afford to play by the rules. It's bad enough we have Voldemort to contend with, now on top of that we have this Scorpion Sorcerer breathing down our necks. I'm positive that Potter is involved somehow. I'll be convening a secret department meeting early this afternoon. It will be outside of Hogwarts. Repeat this to no one since we don't know whom we can trust."

With that, they all left the infirmary to go and get some breakfast. Albus for his part had a gut feeling that things were about to get worse by the time breakfast was over. He wasn't disappointed. Halfway to breakfast, his potions master suddenly appeared in the middle of the great hall with his head lopped off and looking quite gruesome.

Hermione Granger for her part was almost hyperventilating and kept pointing at the dead potion master. Her sidekick Ron Weasley kept opening and closing his mouth like a goby fish. There were quite a few students who didn't seem bothered at all by the gruesome site. Ginny and her fiancé glanced towards each other smiling. Neville and Luna were doing the same thing.

Ginny smiling at Blaise didn't go unnoticed by her brother when he bellowed, "Why are you gushing at that bloody Slytherin for when one of our teachers shows up dead in the great hall? Can't you at least control your stupid smile and hormones so that I can eat without barfing?"

Ginny turned around and with a sickly smile replied, "Well dear Ronald, I'll let you in on a little secret. You gushing all over the bushy nightmare over there makes me ill also. I'm just repaying you for all the times you made me barf. By the way didn't I tell you to stop talking to me? I want nothing to do with you." With that she picked up her books and headed out she had almost reached the great doors when she heard his parting shot.

**"You're nothing but a bloody traitor!"**

Ginny stopped and slowly turned around and with a sneer on her face gave her brother the middle finger. Blaise had been watching the exchange between Ginny and her brother and was getting mighty fed up with Ron Weasley. If he ever hurt Ginny, he was going to find out real quick that you didn't piss off a Zabini.

Ron threw his fork at his plate and swatted his pumpkin juice, where it flew to the floor and spilled everywhere. Everything started going wrong with bloody Potter he thought. Things seemed to be getting worse as time wore on. He wanted to bring down Potter so bad it had almost become his sole mission. The awful truth he had come to realize was that he would never be as powerful as Potty. That thought alone gave him a bad case of the shits.

Meanwhile, pandemonium broke out in the great hall with students screaming their heads off. The headmaster bellowed, "QUIET! Prefects will escort their houses back to the dorms. Stay there until the all clear has been given. GO!" All the students began assembling and following their prefects back to their dorms.

Albus quickly ran to Severus to get a better view of him. When he got there he looked at his face and could almost see relief etched over it. Looking at the body, Albus almost lost his breakfast. Poor boy must have gone through some terrible torture to look like that. Albus promised himself that if he ever found out who this Scorpion Sorcerer was he was going to put him in a world of pain. In his opinion the bastard had just cost him a major chess piece. Now he had to find someone else who could spy on Voldemort.

The game had just gotten a lot harder. He needed to get on with his earlier plan. Hopefully level three security would help keep track of the students. Now he needed to go and raid Severus' potion store and find out how much Veritaserum he had on hand. He might have to take a little trip to Knocturn Alley to secure more if he came up short. With his thoughts in place, he took out his wand and cast a levitation charm on his ex potion master and went back to his office. He needed to get word to the ministry that the Scorpion Sorcerer had executed Severus Snape. He didn't think they would shed a tear over an ex- Death Eater but it would hopefully cement the idea that the Scorpion Sorcerer was just as dangerous as Voldemort and needed to be treated as such.

**November 12 Potter Castle**

Xiana was pacing back and forth in the living room. Harry hadn't been seen since early yesterday morning. He hadn't showed up at the lair, or any of the trunk manors. Bill had showed up later yesterday afternoon looking for Harry. She had met Bill in the command center and with one look at his face she immediately knew that something had happened with Snape. Remus also showed up and Bill had debriefed both of them concerning the events that took place in the dungeon and Snape's demise.

The debrief had shed a whole new light on the mighty Albus Dumbledore. Remus for his part had gone into a towering rage. It had taken five people to subdue him. Tonks had been called in to calm him.

Remus for his part was scared that Harry might have finally reached his breaking point and would confront Dumbledore directly. That thought alone had spurred people to action. Everyone had been alerted and search parties had been sent out to find him. It was now late in the afternoon and still no sign of Harry. Xiana heard someone coming from the entrance and ran to meet them. She looked up to see a grim looking Remus walk towards her. From the look on his face she could tell that he had no news for her.

"Hello Xiana, I just came back from the Lair and no one has found any trace of him yet. Damn it! It's not like him to just up and go without telling anyone. I don't know where else to look. He could be anywhere."

"I'm at my wits end here," she cried. "I phoned dad earlier this morning and he had a discreet search party looking for him in Diagon Alley but so far nothing. I tried calling him, but he doesn't answer."

Remus suddenly had a sort of queer look to him as if he was trying to remember something really important. He suddenly yelled, "Gods, how bloody stupid can I be? Has anybody tried to locate his coordinates using the cell phone range finder?"

Xiana looked dumfounded for a few seconds and closed her eyes. She simply couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of it. How god damn stupid could she be? She finally bellowed, "Bloody Merlin to hell, when am I going to start making full use of those bloody muggle contraptions." She pulled out her cell phone and tapped in the locater code. She waited a few minutes and then her cell phone beeped and she looked at the screen and read a set of coordinates.

Remus quickly conjured some parchment and wrote down the coordinates. He looked at the coordinates and went into the library to look up at the map. On his way to the wall map he passed by Harry's snake den and noticed that his familiar was slightly agitated. Remus didn't have time pondering the peculiarities of snakes and reached the map. He cross-referenced the coordinates to the map and to his amazement he noticed that they were pointing to Tyree Island. Remus suddenly felt very stupid and realized that none of them thought of looking on Potter castle grounds. He could be in the Crypt, the caves or in a tree for all he knew.

Xiana came in and said, "Any luck?"

"Well the coordinates seem to point to Tyree Island."

Xiana's brows furrowed and said, "That's our Island?"

"Exactly! I wanted to ask you if you had searched the castle grounds yet?"

Xiana closed her eyes for the second time today and sighed, "Now that you mention it, no I haven't."

"All right lets check the grounds."

They both dressed warmly because it was bitterly cold outside. There were still remnants from yesterday's storm whipping the castle grounds. They started on the south grounds and slowly worked their way west. With his keen eyesight Remus was the first one to spot a snowy figure out on the gazebo.

"He's on the gazebo!" Remus bellowed. He took off in a run forgetting Xiana for a moment. The figure didn't seem to be moving at all. He was within twenty feet of Harry when he stopped running. Remus didn't want to startle him in anyway. The last thing he needed was a trigger happy Harry.

Remus called, "Harry! Are you all right?" He noticed that Harry's battle robe was covered in snow and ice. His hair also seemed to be covered in ice pellets. What have you been up to, wondered Remus? Getting a little fearful he approached Harry and gently shook him. Getting no response Remus said, "Harry it's me Moony. Tell me what's wrong? You gave us quite a scare you know. We've had no idea where you were."

Remus looked into his eyes and they seemed to have that far away look to them. By this time Xiana had caught up to Remus and with a tremor in her voice said, "Is he ok?"

"I don't know, he hasn't said anything yet," replied Remus.

Xiana looked into her husband's eyes and saw that they were glazed over. It seems like he is in a deep trance of some sort. "Harry please say something. Please talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."

Harry was still not moving and Xiana was now crying and cried out, "God, baby I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong. Say something, are you hurt?"

Harry seemed to recognize familiar voices and one in particular, which sounded very sad and frantic. With a monumental effort Harry came back from his subconscious and blinked his eyes. He couldn't repress how cold he was feeling and noticed that his teeth were clattering. His eyes finally focused and he found himself looking at his frantic wife and Remus. Harry managed to croak, "Where am I?"

"You're home sweetheart. Don't you remember you left the dungeon two days ago?" Xiana was now in full panic mode. He didn't seem to recognize his surroundings. Why was he so confused?

Harry turned towards Remus and croaked, "Why did he do it, Remus? Why did Dumbledore kill them?" With that Harry made to take a step but fell face first in the snow.

Xiana screamed, "Harry!" both she and Remus dropped by his side and turned him over. Xiana took her hand and put it on his forehead. She looked with tears in her eyes and said, "He's burning up Remus." Remus went to pick up Harry but Xiana bellowed, "Dobby and Winky!"

Suddenly both house elves popped beside them and Dobby saw Harry lying on his back and ran immediately to him yelling, "Who is hurting my master?" Remus noticed an almost feral look on the elf face. Elves were incredibly protective of their master. Dobby was triple that, he loved Harry so much. Remus remembered the story of Harry's second year and how he had freed Dobby from the torture of the Malfoy's. Remus looked up when he heard Dobby say, "Master is very sick mistress. Dobby and Winky will transport master to bedroom." Both Dobby and Winky each took one of Harry's hands and popped him to the master bedroom.

Xiana looked at Remus and said, "We need to get him a healer right away. We can't trust the healers at Hogwarts, and I sure as hell don't trust St-Mungo's. Preferably I would like a healer from outside of Britain. Do you have any ideas?"

Remus wracked his brains and said, "Since Fleur is studying to be a healer we could ask her if she knows someone trustworthy."

Xiana suddenly remembered the Death Eater encounter in France and remembered the Delacour family doctor. What was her name again? After a few minutes searching her memories she said, "I'll call Fleur maybe she can contact Madame LaSalle and get her over here." Xiana called Fleur and told her what had happened and asked her if she could contact her family doctor and to call her when she had her. She told Fleur she was going to meet her at the Lair.

She needed to hold the doctors hand to get her past the castle wards. Xiana got some control over her emotions and took Remus' hand for comfort and walked back towards the castle. The moment they reached the castle Xiana bolted for the master bedroom. Remus for his part phoned everyone, to tell them to call off the search because they had found Harry. He then asked their potions master if he could come over and be on standby to brew potions for Harry. Remus explained that Harry was very sick.

Hinrich immediately portkeyed to Potter castle and brought a small box full of healing potions. Remus went to meet Hinrich at the portkey staging area. They made their way to the bar and poured themselves a stiff cognac and Remus gave him a detailed account of the situation.

It was nearly 7:00 pm when Xiana finally showed up with Madame LaSalle and Fleur. They immediately made their way to the master bedroom to look over Harry. Healer LaSalle made it very clear that she didn't need any distractions while performing her test. Out of difference to Xiana and Remus she told them that she would leave the door open but they were to stay in the hallway. Madame LaSalle and Fleur began casting a series of obscure diagnostic spells. This went on for nearly ten minutes before they took a break to confer with each other. Finally the healer waved them to come in.

Madame LaSalle had a befuddled look on her face and facing Xiana and Remus said, "Well I cannot quite believe it, but ze tests do no lie. It would seem zat your husband is undergoing his second magical maturing."

Remus was stunned and finally managed to say, "How is this possible? The second maturing normally occurs between the ages of thirty to forty."

"Well I admit that it is a highly unusual condition for someone his age, but zis has happened in ze past. Severe trauma, shock, or time magic can all be triggers for ze maturing. Zat being the case, we usually prescribe nutrient, pepper up and a sleeping draft for the patient. Ze idea is to make ze patient as comfortable as possible while ze maturing process takes its course."

Xiana now knew for sure what had happened to Harry. The severe use of Odin's Eye and the stresses had triggered his second maturing. She managed to sigh in relief now that she knew Harry had no life threatening illness. Ever the Slytherin, her mind automatically analyzed the potential benefits to Harry. The only question on her mind was how long his illness was going to last. Xiana looked up at the healers and said, "How long can we expect this to last. He needs to be at a court case on the fifteen of this month?"

Fleur replied, "Ze time very much depends on ze magical strength of the wizard. In Harry's case being in the top percentile for magical power, it should take no more zen six days. Our test indicates zat his maturing actually started five days ago. The more severe symptoms don't usually show up until nearly two thirds through the maturing process. This is why we are seeing ze high fever and ze bouts of delirium. He should come out of it by late tonight or at the latest by tomorrow evening."

While Remus went downstairs to tell Heinrich which potions they needed, Madame LaSalle turned towards Xiana and said, "Fleur tells me zat you are pregnant. I zink that a full maternal examination is warranted, yes? I zink that you are well enough in your gestation to determine the sex yes?"

Xiana instinctively put her hand on her belly and smiling looked into the healer eyes and said, "I would love to, but I'd like Harry to be awake. If you don't mind staying with us for a few days until Harry wakes up I would greatly appreciate it."

Madame LaSalle thought about it for a minute and replied, "Well seeing zat it has been slow at my clinic zese past weeks, I guess it wouldn't hurt if I stay for a few days. Very well, if you don't mind, I would like to document your Husband's early magical maturity. Not much is known about ze triggers for early maturation. If Fleur would like to assist me, we could corroborate on a paper to ze world wide magical healers association."

Fleur beamed at being asked and replied, "I would be honored, healer LaSalle. Zat is if it is ok with Xiana?"

Xiana shrugged and said, "As long as it doesn't hurt Harry and that all blood samples are destroyed afterwards then I don't have any objections."

Xiana then called Dobby and told him to assist the healers with anything they needed. She also emphasized the importance for Dobby to make sure that all of Harry's blood samples were destroyed. She knew that the most of the protective wards set up on their home were blood base. It took more than just blood to deactivate the wards, but why take any chance. Her protective nature demanded no less.

At that moment, Remus came back up and handed the potions to Fleur. He then asked Xiana to follow him downstairs for a strategy session. Before leaving, she went to their bed and looked down at Harry with total love in her eyes. She brushed some of his locks from his head and gently bent down and kissed him on the forehead. She whispered to him how much she loved him and left him in the care of the healers.

Xiana followed Remus to the living room and plopped herself in her reclining chair to take a load off her feet. Remus poured himself another drink and went to sit by the fireplace. He took out his wand and placed some silencing charms around them.

He looked at Xiana and said, "As you well know, tonight was the night that Harry was going to cast the _imperius_ curse on Voldemort's and Dumbledore's supporters in the Wizengamot. We have the names thanks to your father of the six-Wizengamot Lords in the Upper House. Since Harry is in no condition to proceed, we need to step in. Now, I have heard rumors from Alastor that the Wizengamot was going to hold a session shortly after Harry's court proceedings to debate Fudges little proposal of augmenting Azkaban's criminal population. If we play our cards right, we may be able to put our people in place without dirtying our hands, and in the process extend the time before Fudge can execute his pet project. We need time to prepare for that confrontation as you well know."

Xiana closed her eyes and sighed. No rest for the weary she thought. She wanted to stay home this evening to take care of Harry but it seemed that some jobs needed to be taken care of. She realized that she still had a paper due this Friday for the Discovery. She finally looked at Remus and said, "Like you said, I don't think we have a choice. I think we should get Bill to meet us at the twins' shop. Most of the Lords are working late tonight preparing for their next session. In addition, this is usually the night where they meet their mistress anyway. We should be able to get all of them before they go home. One thing that bothers me however is that I don't understand why you think we'll get an advantage?"

Remus gave her a wolfish grin and whispered, "Well as you can imagine, on one hand we are going to make some of Dumbledore's most prominent supporters vote him out of office. As for Riddle, his most staunch supporters in the Wizengamot are going to vote against his best interest in supplanting Fudge's desire in early acceptance of his plan on expanding Azkaban. Voldemort wants nothing more than use Azkaban to fill up his dwindling ranks. Most of the wizards and witches coming from mainland Europe are going to be the sort of hardcore fanatics that Voldemort would love at his side. In delaying their arrival, Voldemort will notice the treachery of the Wizengamot and take action on those refusing to do his bidding. When he kills his supporters, we'll move in before he has any chance of putting in replacements."

Xiana simply smirked at Remus and replied, "I'm starting to wonder about the validity of the Hogwarts sorting hat? You would make a formidable Slytherin Remus."

Remus shrugged his shoulder and replied, "Originally, the hat wanted to put me in Slytherin but I convinced it to put me in Gryffindor instead."

Xiana looked at Remus and started to laugh hysterically. Remus simply raised an eyebrow and Xiana finally managed to utter, "That's the same thing that happened to Harry. The hat wanted to put him in Slytherin but he convinced it to put him in Gryffindor." With those last thought, Remus took his cell phone and called the twins and gave them a rendezvous time.

Later that night they made their way to the twins' shop and met with Bill. After much debating, it was agreed that every attack team would have a backup in the shadows. In the end, they would be following Harry's plan."

The groups split into four teams. Xiana and the twins, Bill with Fleur, Remus with Tonks, and Brianna with Theo as backups. The teams were given thorough debriefs and expectations. They all left the twins shop and made their way to contact point alpha. Much later that night they all met back at WWW with mission status successful. Only Xiana needed help with her subject. The twins had been more than capable of handling the backlash. They now had complete control over six members of the Wizengamot.

Meanwhile, Harry felt as if he was completely disconnected from his body. The sensation of floating in the abyss was overwhelming. He suddenly felt as if he was falling off a precipice and found himself drifting through a swirling black fog mixed in with fiery red burst of light. The sky above seemed filled with intermittent lightning strikes. Harry found himself being pulled through a pathway leading to a large set of doors. Harry recalled his memories and knew what was going to happen.

Harry passed thought the doors and followed the path, which he already knew. He again noticed a variety of statues lining the path. The statues, which looked like scorpions, hydras, nephelims, extinct dragons, and jackal warriors, bowed their heads as he was walking past them. Harry found it strange but kept going. He finally came to a large dome, which gave off an eerie blue glow. Harry went through the archway, and found himself walking towards the center of the dome. He neared the center, and could make out the familiar throne with scorpions etched all over its surface. Floating above the throne Harry saw the familiar swirling mass of blue and green fog with a pair of black eyes with deep purple flames for iris looking back at him. Harry knew whom he was meeting and on instinct kneeled and bowed his head in respect and waited.

He heard the soft lisping voice telling him to rise. Harry obeyed, and stood tall in front of the swirling mass. The voice spoke to him directly and said, "Champion, welcome back. I have been watching your progress and I'm pleased with what I see. You are very close to forging alliances with many powerful magical beings. That is good young one. You will need to yoke their strengths to accomplish your goals. I dare say they will also greatly benefit with their alliance to you."

Harry nodded and replied, "Great one, I truly believe that real change in the Wizarding world can only occur with their support."

"Quite true young one. I have called you because I feel you are ready to ascend to the next plane of knowledge. You may not know this yet, but your greatest enemy has cheated fate once more and gained more power through forbidden rituals. Don't worry your powers are still more than a match for his. He however had found the ancient Aztec book of Toltec. Toltec was a very powerful necromancer and conjurer. The knowledge contained in his manuscripts will give the cheater of fate control over all dark magical beasts in your dimension. He will even be able to control dragons. With your current knowledge you would be on the defensive when fighting his dark army. The best you can hope to achieve is a draw."

Harry's sighed and felt his shoulders sag under the added stress. He looked at the ethereal eyes and replied, "I hope great spirit that you have found some way of helping me? I can't do this alone."

The ethereal spirit known as Tiamat looked like it was smirking and said, "Don't look so worried, champion. The knowledge you are about to learn will make your enemies beg for mercy. Now the spells and incantations you will be learning will require the use of a staff. You will need to locate a box, which contains some very special stones. Back in my time, we called them light benders. We came upon these stones following a meteor shower. The reason we called them light bender is that they appeared almost invisible to the naked eye. The stones themselves are pitch black and very heavy. Long ago when we were experimenting with the dark stones, we eventually figured out that they had the power to alter raw magical energy into concentrated gravitational waves. These concentrated gravitational fields allowed us to discover, and breach alternate dimensional gates."

Noticing the bewildered look on her champion's face, the ethereal being simplified her explanation by saying, "The stone simply changes the structure of the apparition energy into a tightly packed gravitational beam. This beam in turn disrupts the current dimensional continuum and allows for a portal to be opened with a parallel earth. You must understand that mankind does not rule all of these earths. Some of these worlds are actually ruled by magical creatures. The red dragons of Kagan happen to rule one of these worlds. It took me a very long time to figure out how to communicate and summon these creatures. I found out that the magical energy from our world is like ambrosia to them. They are fierce and intelligent combatants. One of their favorite preys is our world's dragon. They are bigger and fiercer looking than any of our earth dragons."

Harry couldn't even fathom a creature that was fiercer looking than a Hungarian Horntail. The stone she is talking about doesn't sound like Naquadah or Naquadria he thought. He needed to know what these stones were. Perhaps muggle science could shed some light. Harry analyzed all of the information Tiamat had given him and one question that kept coming to mind was the need for a staff. He felt his new wand had more than enough power. He looked into those fathomless eyes and said, "Why do I need a staff, and where can I find those stones you speak of?"

"The staff is needed to channel and amplify magical energy to levels far greater than your wand is capable of handling. I know of your discoveries on wand making, but it will not be enough for the advance conjuring spell I will teach you. You will need to channel more energy in greater density over a greater area than what your wand can produce. A properly crafted staff with your mineral combined with the light bender stone will be more than sufficient to open a dimensional gate."

Looking into his eyes, Tiamat continued with her explanation, "Now listen carefully, the dark stones can be found in a golden box. You will know that you have the right box because it has an inlaid gold carving of a dragon, which you have never seen before. Do not touch the other boxes unless you wish to keep me company in this realm. You will be looking for the cave of Zorn near the ancient city of Sumer. There is a valley to the south of a city, which muggles call Basra in Iraq. Halfway into the valley you will find the cave of Zorn. A Scorpion man in stasis will hold the box itself. He will only answer in high snake. Retrieve the stones and build a staff. Remember, when we put the stone in guardianship, we installed no less than seven wards at the mouth of the cave. Before you leave, I'll tell you what they are. Now let me teach you the following spells…etc"

Harry felt as if he had been in the netherworld for eons. Time dilation effects tended to warp one's perception of time. He felt mentally exhausted, but knew it had been well worth it. He had learned magic, which had not seen the light of day since Tiamat's last battle. The magic itself was a combination of chants, rune language, and magical energy modifiers all combined into high level parseltongue spells. The incantation, power, and focus needed for these spells had to be perfect lest a catastrophe occur. Harry had taken his time to properly memorize all facets of the spells. He had no doubt that the arithmancy equations needed to break down these spells would take a lifetime to decipher. It would definitely require the use of muggle computers.

Harry was brought out of his musing when he heard Tiamat calling to him. Harry blushed and said, "I'm sorry, I was deep in thought for a moment."

Again, Harry heard her soft lisping chuckle. He looked up, and he could almost discern a smirk on her fathomless lips. She finally said, "I believe you have learned enough for now. There are still lots more magic to show you, but that will be for another time. Make more progress and we shall meet again."

As soon as the spirit finished her last word Harry felt himself spinning as if caught in a portkey. Harry realized he was rapidly floating upwards through a thick black fog. He could see a kaleidoscope of colors and found himself suddenly waking up in his bed.

_**Late Afternoon November 13 Potter Castle**_

Xiana was in her favorite reclining chair looking at the beautiful bluish flame deep in thought. She had taken the rest of the day off to recuperate from her previous night mission. Her part of the mission had almost failed due to her arrogance. She had been waiting by one of the small alleys off Grimmauld Avenue. The alley itself led directly to the _**Dirty Hag**_.

The brothel catered to all sexual tastes. From reading her father's very comprehensive file, it appeared that Vladimir liked little boys. Dumbledore sure had shady friends, she thought. She saw him coming and took her position to curse the man. She waited until she was sure of her shot and fired. Who would have thought that someone as fat as Lord Vladimir O'Malley could move so fast? The upper house Lord had somehow felt her presence just in time to avoid her first _Imperio_ spell. He somehow managed a roundhouse punch to her wand hand, and in the process knocked her wand out. She quickly retaliated with a swift kick to the gonads and as he went down, the twins petrified him. She retrieved her wand successfully cast _Imperio_ on the idiot. She made sure that her next victim was past her position before firing her spell. She was thinking about Remus' success when she noticed Harry coming down the stairs.

She ran to him and gave him a huge kiss. She looked into his eyes and knew right away that he was feeling loads better. The fever had broken by mid afternoon and it looked like he had woken up not too long ago. He had shaved and taken a bath. His jet-black hair was fanned out around his shoulder blades. The color had fully returned on his gorgeous face. His eyes were once again shining like emerald colored orbs.

"Potter, don't you ever scare me like that again. Next time you feel out of sort or sick, you get your butt back home ASAP. Do you hear me? Promise me you are going to take better care of yourself in the future." She then buried her head in his shoulder and hugged him as hard as she could. It felt so good to hold him and know that he was all right.

Harry heard her stern voice but noticed she was hugging the stuffing out of him. He must have worried her quite a bit for her to be acting like this. He now remembered Snape, apparating to the gazebo and then waking up in his bed. He lifted her chin and gently kissed her. He then said, "I promise to better take care of myself and to try to not make you worry. Now, could someone tell me what this sickness was? My whole body feels like it was trampled by a dragon herd."

That seemed to satisfy his wife. Xiana brushed her outfit, which she always did when she was regaining her composure and replied, "Well honey, it seems like you just went through your second magical maturity. The healers believe it was brought on by too much time magic and stress. We both know what triggers brought that on."

"Well, that's certainly another quirk in the life of Harry Potter. I'm wondering if I'll ever do anything normal."

Xiana passed him while heading to the living room and smirking replied, "Afraid not Potter, fate really seems to have it in for you. Don't worry love, it only makes life that much more interesting."

"Gee, I feel so much better." Harry frowned and followed his wife into the living room.

Once they were both sitting, Xiana explained everything that had happened while he was out for the count. She told him how they found him, how Fleur managed to get her family healer to come over, the operations, which took place the previous evening, and the results. Xiana spared no details and told him everything. Harry felt he had to share his little meeting in the netherworld. He told her about his first and second meeting with ethereal being Tiamat. He explained what he had learned and that he still wasn't sure it was real or not. He then told her about the light bender rocks and where they were located. He explained in details that he had to build a staff. He told her he needed to go to Iraq to find the cave that Tiamat had spoken off.

"The best way to find out if these visions are real or not is to find those rocks. If I find the rocks, then I'll know the visions were real. I'm starting to wonder if Tiamat is the power the Dark Lord knows not." Harry settled back in his chair and took a sip of brandy.

Xiana didn't say a thing for a while. She finally looked at him and said, "I'm not questioning the value of your vision love, I'm just scared that Voldemort has somehow found a new way of tormenting you through that blasted scar."

Harry looked at the flames dancing in the fireplace and recalled all of the checks he had done over the past three hours. He had checked to make sure that he retained control of the link. He looked at Xiana and gave her a small smile and replied, "I'm positive Voldemort had nothing to do with this. When I woke up, I carried out a full diagnostics of my memories and checked to make sure that none of them were tampered with. I also checked my link with snake face, and found my magical signature intact. If he had tried to attack me through the link, there would have been a residual left over from his magical core. As it were, the link is intact and in my control."

"OK, if you're sure then I'm willing to be open-minded about this. Just be careful, love. Take your time when you get there. You have all of tomorrow to carry out your hunting expedition. Don't over exert yourself either. You are still recovering. We are to close to kicking Dumbledore's wrinkled butt to have you relapse because you over used your magic." Xiana gave him a stern look, and instinctively rubbed her belly.

Harry didn't miss the gesture and suddenly came to attention and gave her a military salute and said, "Yes ma'am, your wishes are my command." He smiled and made his way to her chair and dropped on his knees and gently kissed her belly. Xiana for her part ran her hands through his velvety mass of black hair and smiled. How is it he always knew how to make her feel better?

Earlier that afternoon, Xiana had called her father and asked him what he thought of inviting the whole family for a strategy session. She sweetened the pot by telling him that tonight he was going to find out if he was getting a granddaughter or a grandson. Her father ended up bringing everyone for supper for a big strategy session.

That night everyone was real glad that Harry was back to his old self. Remus noticed that the flames in his eyes were burning even brighter. The elves had once again outdone themselves. They had just finished putting the final touches on the approach they were going to use on Dumbledore. Michael spent a great deal of time with Harry to make sure he was familiar with all of the protocols. Xiana's mother on the other hand was fed up with all the strategizing and wanted to know the sex of her grandchild. She went and told Madame LaSalle and Fleur that it was time.

The healers entered the living room and everyone smiled. She told Xiana to lie down on her chair and recline it. The healer than opened up a section of her robes so that her belly was sticking out. She motioned Fleur to join her. Her apprentice needed to learn the wand movements anyway. Madame LaSalle began casting a slew of spells. Everyone could see Harry sweating bullets, and Remus had to stifle a smile. At that moment, Harry was the spitting image of James he thought. He even has the same mannerisms.

Madame LaSalle turned towards the anxious family and smiled. She then looked directly at Xiana and said, "If I'm not mistaken, twins seem to be the norm for Zabini females? Congratulations my dear you will be the proud mother of a little boy and girl."

Xiana's mother squealed and ran to her daughter to give her hugs and kisses. Brianna was a close second. Soon all of the females were hugging Xiana. Michael for the first time in a long time cut loose his emotional controls and gave his son in law strong hug and handshake. Remus followed Michael's lead and gave Harry a bone-crushing hug. He whispered in his ears, "James and Lily would be so proud of you."

Bill, Blaise and Theo simply high-fived Harry. Brianna and his mother in law hugged and kissed him on the cheek. To say that he was happy was the understatement of the year. The love he felt for Xiana was complete and absolute. It was the love that only bonded souls could feel for each other. He went over to Xiana and pulled her up and gave her a passionate kiss. They pulled apart and went to thank Madame LaSalle. Xiana was very happy with her services and asked her if she could be their family healer. She accepted and said she would come back in two months for another check up. She gave her a list of potion supplements that she could take. When she was done, Fleur escorted her back to France.

It was getting late and everyone needed their beauty sleep. That night, Harry and Xiana made love several times. Xiana was first to fall asleep and Harry gently spooned towards her so that he could feel her back against his chest. He wrapped his right arm around her belly, and fell into blissful sleep. Tomorrow would be a busy day.

_**Early Morning November 14 Potter Castle**_

Harry and Xiana woke up early. After they were done their morning routine, they went down for a hardy breakfast. Xiana was going to meet Remus and go over everything he had found about Horcruxes. Harry remembered how deep Lucius had buried that information in his mind. The information was buried so deep that it had to have some importance somehow. Maybe it was a secret vault or staging area for Death Eaters. Well, he would get a report soon enough, he thought. He needed to get going. He kissed Xiana and told her he would call her if he was running into any kind of trouble.

Harry walked back to the master bedroom to get his battle gear. He made sure he had everything and went to his study and used his computer to look up the valley's coordinates. It turns out that there were three valleys. One to the north, one to the east and the last one was to the south. Harry figured he should apparate a quarter of the way into the valley. He figured that over six thousand years, surface geology would have shifted things a bit. He calmed his mind and pictured the coordinates. Within seconds, Harry found himself on a completely different landscape. The first thing he noticed was the high valley walls, and the torrid heat.

Harry immediately cast a cooling charm, a disillusion, a notice me not, and brought forth his aura reading ability. The first thing he noticed was that he had already punched through a muggle repelling ward. Harry could see the magical energy in the air. He started heading north. He was careful to manipulate around the boulders. He cast several revealing charms for good measure but found nothing. After about an hour of walking, Harry decided to speed things up a bit and took his broom off his chain and enlarged it. He mounted the broom and scanned from the air. After about fifteen minutes of low speed flying, he noticed a bunch of interlaced wards underneath an overhang. He flew toward the ground stopping just in from of the first ward. During his escapade in the underworld, Tiamat had taught him two new wards. They were extremely dark, painful, and lethal. Harry could attest to the lethality of the wards since at least half a dozen skeletons were littered at the entrance to what he believed to be a portal like the one at platform 9 3/4.

He quickly analyzed each ward and cast the counter curse as he had been thought. Not wanting to take any chances, he transfigured a small cactus into a rabbit and threw it at the portal. The rabbit sailed right through the portal. Harry simply raised his eyebrows and slowly walked towards the portal. He slowly extended his right hand and saw it disappear behind the wall. He quickly withdrew his hand and with his wand at the ready cast _Lumos _and stepped through the portal. The moment he steeped through, green flame torches lit the cavern. Harry took his time examining everything. He noticed the magical energy of the torches, and found much of the cave to be in permanent stasis.

Harry walked towards the back of the cave. He must have walked at least one hundred feet when the back of the cave suddenly lit with a series of blue flame torch. The back of the cave had a really creepy feeling to it. There were stalactites and stalagmites covering the whole area. Harry could make out huge cobwebs, and could hear snakes talking in the background. The most bizarre thing however, was the three scorpion men frozen in stases, each holding a golden box? Harry was now convinced that Tiamat was real.

He needed to animate the scorpion men, pick the right box and conjure two large scorpions. He needed to prove that he was a disciple of Tiamat, and was worthy to take the box. Harry crossed a series of very shallow puddles and stopped at the scorpion statue. He bowed his head towards the statue and moved behind it. The moment he was behind the statue a large swirling wind erupted in the cavern. The storm quickly died, and Harry could see the stasis fields dissolving. Three scorpion men came out of their stupor, and looked around the cave until they spotted Harry. Using their eight legs, they quickly made their way towards him.

One of the scorpion man said, _**sss**_ "Who dares brave the wrath of the great Tiamat? Prove your worth to us or die a painful death." _**sss**_

Harry took out his wand and right away conjured two large scorpions. He noticed a smirk on their face and Harry replied in high snake, _**sss**_ "Great guardians, I've come to take the legendary dark stones so that Tiamat's mighty army can rise once again." _**sss **_

The middle scorpion man came forward and said, _**sss**_"You have proven that you are a disciple of the great Tiamat. Now you must prove that you are a great sorcerer and choose the correct box. If you fail you die." _**sss **_

Gees, these guys should really lighten up, he thought. Harry simply nodded and slowly made his way to them and looked at the top cover on each box. Each box had the exact same markings of dark magical creatures. The top of each box had dragons on it. The difference was that one of the boxes had a dragon, which resembled an earth dragon but was red and black in marking. This was the dimensional dragon, he was sure of it. Harry found the correct box, which was being held by the third scorpion man. Harry smiled and was prepared to apparate at a moments notice if he was wrong. He pointed his wand at the box and waited to see what would happen.

The third scorpion man bowed to him and released the box from its pincers. The scorpion man then said, _**sss**_ "You have guessed right young sorcerer. May you bring back Tiamat's honor. There is another smaller blue box sitting in the little shrine on my left. The box contains gems. Take them as well. You will need them to build your weapons. Farewell sorcerer." _**sss**_

The scorpion men suddenly moved back to their positions and a blue like field suddenly swept over them and they were frozen in stasis once more. Harry took his wand and _Accio_ the gem box. He then levitated both boxes and made his way back outside the cave. Once outside, he put back all of the original wards. Harry decided to open both boxes outside. Even in stasis there could have been some spores, mold or fungus, which made its way into the boxes. The last thing he needed was to release some dangerous contagion in his castle. Harry figured that everything responded to high snake with Tiamat and hissed, _**sss**_ "Open." _**sss**_

Harry heard a click and levitated the lids off. He then cast several _Scourgify _on the boxes and slowly approached them. Harry first looked into the box containing the dark stone. The sight that met his eyes was unlike anything he had ever seen. Light seemed to bend and warp around the stones. Harry noticed that there were about twenty stones ranging in size from a large orange to a small cantaloupe. Harry took his hand and touched one of the stones and felt its brutal coldness.

The stone was so cold that it sent shivers down his back. Harry looked closer at the rock and noticed how incredibly smooth the surface was. The other thing that intrigued him was the cool plasma light shows occurring between his hand and the surface of the stone. He wondered if his raw magic was reacting to the stone. Harry looked at his watch and noticed that it was only noon. Not feeling particularly hungry, he decided to find out what the material was. He cast several specialized metallurgical spell to help him categorize its properties. However, the more spells he cast the more confused he became.

If the spells were right, then this material was defying the very nature of _baryonic_ matter. Every stone he tested did the same thing. They all vibrated at the exact same frequency. It was as if every atom in the stone was behaving as one. There were always slight variances in translational and vibrational energy output of a specific element. With this stuff, it's as if every atoms physical property acted as one single atom.

Harry really needed to do some digging on this. He seemed to remember an article that might help him from one of his muggle physics books. He knew the books and would look it up the moment he went back home. He closed the lid on the stone box and opened the gem box. Inside that box he found a large quantity of ultra pure gems. There were emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and diamonds. They ranged from thumb to chicken egg size. This was a good find, he thought. The quality of the gems is what was important here. They were flawless. They would be perfect as focusing stones. Happy with his discoveries, Harry took hold of his broom and apparated himself with both boxes back to Potter castle.

Harry began moving the boxes to his private workshop, and ran into Xiana as she was coming out of library. He noticed the look of surprise on her face, and waited for her to make the connection. He didn't have to wait long when she whispered, "It's true isn't it? There really is some entity reaching out to help you? "

Harry replied, "I was starting to doubt my own sanity there for a while, but after finding the stones at the exact location Tiamat gave me I'm just happy that a greater power has vested interest in my success."

Xiana slowly nodded and looked at the other box. She frowned and said, "What's in the other box?"

"As an added bonus, I was given very high quality focusing stones. I dare say they'll be very useful when I build my staff. How was your meeting with Remus?"

Xiana replied, "It was a very informative session. We pooled our finding and came up with some very interesting revelations. I am still compiling the list of spells though. I should be ready to debrief you by supper time."

"That's all right I'll be locked in the lab all afternoon. I have some research to do." With that Harry kissed his wife and buried himself in his lab.

Lunch Time Hogwarts November 14

Albus Dumbledore was casually waiting for the students to enter the great hall. He had his teachers pass the message that all students were to attend lunch because of a special announcement. It didn't take long for all the students to be seated. He pulled out his wand and put a strong locking charm on the doors. He got up and addressed the students. He looked towards Miss Granger and gave her a slight nod. He then looked at the student body and said, "Dear friends, I have a special announcement for you today. I've arranged it so that our friends from Beauxbaton, and Durmstrang will be able to join us for this year's Christmas dance. I hope you are as pleased as I am."

Albus could hear a great cheer erupt throughout the great Hall. He waited for the ruckus to die down a bit and raised his hand to get their attention. Once the hall was quiet he said, "To celebrate this wonderful news, I have asked the kitchen elves to put a sumptuous fall feast together. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I. Let the feast begin."

Albus sat down, and nodded at the teachers. What the students didn't know was that all beverages had been spiked with Veritaserum coupled with a time delay charm. He just had to wait it out.

Unknown to Dumbledore many people had not taken any of the juice yet. Neville, who had been sitting at the end of the table close to the great hall doors, had felt a spell hit the doors earlier and knew something was wrong. He and Luna over time had taken the time to develop sign language and could communicate rather well with it. Neville kept looking at Luna hoping to get her attention. He finally managed to get her attention. Making sure no one was watching, he looked into her eyes and slowly drifted his gaze to his left hand.

He then began making signs hoping she could catch what he was saying. He looked back at her eyes and noticed her slowly nodding her head. Good, he thought, she got the message loud and clear. He had basically told her to cast revealing spells on the food, juices and all dinner ware to make sure they weren't tampered with. Neville wanted to scream to his compatriots that something was wrong, but couldn't take the chance of tipping his hand. He would have no choice but to tip his hand if it came down to a confrontation.

Neville was thinking furiously. He needed to take the offensive, but how? Suddenly the food and drinks appeared and he carefully took out his new wand from his right boot and started casting silent spells on his food and drink. Sure enough he saw slight blue glow on his goblet telling him that there was a foreign substance. He needed to find out what it was. He then cast a slew of revealing spell. On his last spell the goblet glowed neon green. He looked up to see that Hannah Abbott and Stewart Akerley had already drunk from their goblets. With a sense of urgency he looked towards the Slytherin table and noticed that Blaise, Brianna and Theo were about to have a toast. He knew that the older warriors were sufficiently accomplished Occlumens and could fight off the Veritaserum, but the younger initiates weren't accomplished enough in the mind arts and could compromise themselves with disastrous results.

With his mind made up, he suddenly stood up and picking his cup, he threw it at the main door and bellowed, "What is the meaning of this Dumbledore!"

Everyone immediately went quiet and stopped what they were doing. They were all looking at him. Noticing that his compatriots had put their goblet down, he continued, "So tell me professor, what is the meaning of spiking the drinks with Veritaserum! This is illegal under section twenty paragraph thirteen of the criminal code of ethics. Veritaserum shall never be administered to minors without written orders from the ministry. I'll tell you this, my Gran will hear of this I assure you! What kind of fucking school do you run here anyway? From where I stand it's starting to look more like a circus than a bloody school." He turned towards Chilli pepper and beaver and noticed they had their wands pointing at him. He could see the smirk on their faces.

Albus Dumbledore narrowed his eyes and was seething inside. This was not going the way he wanted it. He looked at the Longbottom heir and sneering replied, "The meaning of this Mr. Longbottom is that it has come to my attention that there are spies here at Hogwarts, who report directly to the new Dark Lord know as the Scorpion Sorcerer. He is directly responsible for the death of one of my teachers and I will see justice rendered."

Neville looked at the headmaster and suddenly burst out laughing. He could see Weasley and Granger sneering at him but he didn't care. He finally managed some control and sneering back at Dumbledore, he bellowed, "Talk about lies and deception headmaster. You wouldn't know justice if it bit you in the ass."

Minerva suddenly stood up and screeched, "That will be two hundred points for your insubordination Longbottom."

"Like I actually give a shit what you think you ancient sycophant," Neville sneered back.

Neville could see McGonagall turn a nasty shade of puce when she bellowed, "Well I never! That will be one month worth of detention and another one hundred points."

Neville took the time to look at each table and hoped that they could read the look in his eyes that said, get ready for a showdown. Neville heard the headmaster bellow and once again everyone's attention was drawn back to the headmaster.

Albus descended to the main floor and cast _sonorous_ on his himself and bellowed, "Those of you who are working for the Scorpion Sorcerer will raise their left hand."

Ginny had drunk the Veritaserum and was now fighting tooth and nails to not reveal herself. Sweat was beginning to form on her head. She was pouring every one of magic in her shields to fight off the effect. She felt like she was gaining the upper hand. She looked around to see Hannah Abbott and Stewart Akerley raise their hands. Oh god, she thought, our new recruits.

Dumbledore saw two hands in the air and immediately cast _Incarcerous_ on the spies. Finally getting somewhere, he thought. He approached them and with a smirk on his face said, "What is the identity of the Scorpion Sorcerer?"

Neville to his utter horror couldn't do anything to help them. He could see the sheer terror on their faces and the beads of sweat on their forehead. They were trying to fight the Veritaserum but they simply weren't strong enough in the mind arts. He knew what was about to happen. He looked at Luna and Ginny and noticed the sad look in their faces. With pure hate in his eyes, he promised himself that Dumbledore would pay for this day.

Hannah could see the stupid smirk on Dumbledore's face, but was not going to give him the satisfaction. Mustering the last of her courage, and unable to fight the Veritaserum she whispered so softly that no one could have heard her answer.

Dumbledore sneered and said, "You will repeat yourself Miss Abbott! This time much louder." To Dumbledore's dismay he noticed the light fading from her eyes and she slumped in her seat. He suddenly recognized what was happening and whirled towards the young Ravenclaw to stun him, but he was too late. The young Ravenclaw finished whispering and like Miss Abbott he too slumped dead in his seat. Dumbledore now realized his mistake. He never took into account that they would have magical binding contracts. The bastard thought of everything. Well, all is not lost he thought at least that's two less soldiers for him. Smiling to himself, he turned his gaze towards the Longbottom pest.

Neville couldn't believe how treacherous the headmaster was. He had just flaunted the law as if it were nothing to him and in the process killed two students. To top it off, the bastard had the audacity to smile. Feeling a righteous rage boiling to the surface Neville bellowed to the rest of the hall, "I wonder what the wizards and withes of England will think of the great Albus Dumbledore when they read the Daily Prophet tomorrow and learn that he killed two innocent students while, may I add, breaking the law in the process. Now, if you'll excuse me I have an interview to give."

"Stay right where you are Mr. Longbottom if you know what's good for you. You will come to my office for a little chat. I have a feeling you know what really happened to my potions master. I will find out the truth one way or another." Dumbledore sneered back.

Ron Weasley without thinking said, "Who are you to question the greatest wizard of the age. You're nothing Longbottom, do you hear me? The sooner you learn your place on the food chain, the higher your life expectancy will be."

Neville slowly turned his gaze towards Weasley, and with a venomous snarl said, "Why in the name of Merlin would I want to take advise from some prejudiced, idiotic, brainless, dickless, boot licking sycophant whose sole purpose in life is to take orders from a stuck up know it all. Thanks for the advice carrot head, but sit down before you overtax what little gray matter you have left, and let the grown ups talk."

Ron instantly whipped out his wand and cast, _"Expelli…",_ but never finished his spell. Neville soundlessly brought his wand down and banished Weasley towards the head table. He went crashing into Dumbledore's plate. Neville saw Granger stab her wand and saw the tell tale light of a _diffindo_ curse coming at him. He turned sideways but still caught part of the curse on his left shoulder where a deep medium size cut appeared. Blood spurted from the wound. Hissing from the pain, Neville was about to curse the beaver bitch when he heard Luna yell, "You bitch! _Retroago-Figere-Scipio_"

Neville saw Granger slash her wand but instead of a spell coming out, her wand exploded in her hand.  
She screamed in sheer agony, and dropped to her knees while looking at her bloodied hand. Neville, immediately _Accio _Luna to him, and started drawing a powerful rune shield. Meanwhile the teachers along with other members of the Order of the Phoenix had overturned several of the large tables for protection and started casting a slew of _Stupefy, Reducto, Diffindo_, and several _Crucio_ from Ronald Weasley and other DA members. Dumbledore out in the open cast a powerful golden shield on himself and with another spell made himself jump high in the air and land behind the overturned head table.

Blaise with Theo's help had managed to overturn the Slytherin table and Brianna, Susan, the Patil twins, and Cindy (aka Tonks), managed to reach Neville and Luna to provide cover. Blaise was crouched down with Theo and noticed Chris McGhee, John Hobbit, and Scott McGinnis had joined them. The new recruits were decent duellists, he thought. Blaise feeling the adrenaline and the need to jump into action took another quick look to get his bearings and saw a _Crucio_ heading towards Neville's position.

He looked at the others and bellowed, "Fuck this. They want to play dirty, well then let's show them how the game is really played. Chris, John, and Scott take defence and provide shields. Use the dark shields, they are more powerful. Theo and I will be taking the offence. Everyone Ready? Go!"

Meanwhile the rest of the student population was in complete panic. Several of the teachers made their way to the younger years and cast several shield charms and guided them towards another room. The older students were busy transforming cups, plates, and other kitchenware into defensive and offensive weapons. Many started following their teacher and started casting spells at the people close to the great doors.

Ginny had moved into action, and started pouring a vast array of spells, both light and dark. She was sick of hiding anyway. Thank God, Neville had been alert. She was still fighting the last vestiges of the blasted Veritaserum. She felt such hatred for Dumbledore and what he had done to her friends. Two of her compatriots were dead, and for that Dumbledore and his merry band of boot lickers had to pay. She inwardly shuddered at the primal rage that Harry would go into once he found out the news. Well enough thinking and more fighting, she thought.

Ginny remembered reading a very obscure spell from Necron's last book and cast _Dumosus-Oris-Pavimentum_ at the floor next to the overturned head table. She was rewarded when thick, prickly stone vines began wrapping around the table and started crushing it. She could hear Dumbledore fighting with the vines. She turned to see her fiancé making his way towards Neville. With no back up where she was, she realized she had to get away from her current position and join them. She cast a strong body shield and ran towards Neville. She was hit by a couple of _Stupefy_ and a _Diffindo_ but her shield failed when she was hit with a _Crucio_. Ginny dropped on the floor and began screaming.

Blaise saw Ginny get hit with _Crucio_. With a snarl on his face, he erected two more granite walls. The first wall sprang up in front of Ginny and cut the _Crucio_ off. Ginny raised herself to her knees panting. She suddenly noticed a granite wall appear before her. Without any hesitation, she jumped over it and landed beside Blaise.

With a worried look on his face Blaise asked, "You alright babe?"

"Yeah, God I hate _Crucio_. We've to get out of here. It won't take long for the headmaster to smash through our defences."

Blaise gave Ginny a quick kiss and whispered, "By the way, good thinking with the vines. That bought us some time."

Blaise and Theo managed to transfigure more utensils into granite walls. They positioned them in a staggered formation. John, Chris, and Scott had taken forward positions and kept blanketing the area with shields. Blaise could tell they were starting to tire out. They hadn't received their new wands yet.

Both Neville's front and flanks were now sporting protective walls. They rushed over and took position. Blaise looked at Neville and Theo and counted to three. They all came up and cast a slew of spells, _Penetrabilis-Matara/ Diffindo-Caruncula/ Stannum-Ancile/ Inferorum-Animas-Ursus / Caliginosus-Admoveo_ at that point poison dark lances, tridents, animated bears, dark cutting curses and a dark fog of war suddenly appeared racing across the great hall. It was complete pandemonium. People on the other side started falling due to friendly fire.

Neville looked at the great doors and bellowed, _"Lacertosus- Rumpere." _The powerful dark explosion curse broke through the locking ward, and shattered the door into dust. Neville bellowed, "Make a run for it. Meeting point Omega-1."

Neville took Luna's hand and they sprinted through the destroyed doors followed by the other scorpion soldiers. Once they were all out, Neville and Blaise cast a powerful rune ward across the doors. Blaise then said, "This should keep them occupied for a while. They all ran to Myrtle's bathroom. Once they were all present they portkeyed to the lair. They saw Moody and their tutors running over.

Moody was the first one to reach them and said, "We saw everything on the cameras. We were getting ready to come and get you people out. Good vigilance Longbottom. The body count would have been a lot higher had you not acted the way you did. The worst part is that we've been monitoring the cameras but no one picked up any news of Dumbledore's plan. The sneaky bastard is getting unpredictable. Someone has to tell Potter what happened."

"I'll go," Brianna replied.

Moody nodded, and turned towards the rest and said, "All right everyone get patched up and ready for debrief at 15:00 p.m. We need to piece together was exactly happened back there."

**November 14, 2:30 p.m. Potter Castle**

Harry had just finished comparing all of the various light bender stones. No matter what variation of the mining spells he was using, he was getting the same results. He wiped the sweat on his forehead and finished his last entry on his computer. Harry heard a soft pop and heard Dobby squeaking, "I is have master's book Dobby thinks."

Smiling at the hyperactive little elf, Harry took the books from him and said, "Thank you Dobby. You have been a real lifesaver this afternoon. I never thought we would make this much progress this early in the afternoon."

A beaming Dobby replied, "Would Master like some tea and scones?"

"That sounds fantastic Dobby, Thank you." With that, the little elf popped away.

Harry was looking at the index of his physics book for single atom behavior, and found an entry on page 127. According to this article, in June 1995 a research group at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (now called JILA) in Boulder, Colo., succeeded in creating a minuscule but marvellous droplet. By cooling 2,000 rubidium atoms to a temperature less than 100 billionths of a degree above absolute zero (100 billionths of a degree Kelvin), we caused the atoms to lose for a full 10 seconds their individual identities and behave as though they were a single super atom. The atom's physical properties, such as their motions, became identical to one another. This Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), the first observed in a gas, can be thought of as the matter counterpart of the laser-except that in the condensate it is atoms, rather than photons, that dance in perfect unison.

Harry was now positive that based on the light bending property the stone, the unique density distribution of the matter, and its atomic behavior that he was looking at what muggles called _**dark matter**_. Picking up another book, Harry looked in its index and found a modern day muggle postulate for the existence of dark matter. Harry went to page 215 and found the following article. In cosmology, _**dark matter**_ refers to hypothetical matter particles of unknown composition that do not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be detected directly, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter such as stars and galaxies.

The dark matter hypothesis aims to explain several anomalous astronomical observations, such as anomalies in the rotational speed of galaxies (the galaxy rotation problem). Estimates of the amount of matter present in galaxies, based on gravitational effects, consistently suggest that there is far more matter than is directly observable.

The existence of dark matter would also resolve a number of inconsistencies in the Big Bang theory, and is crucial for structure formation. If dark matter does exist, it has vastly more mass than the "visible" part of the universe 1. Only about 4% of the total mass in the universe (as inferred from gravitational effects) can be seen directly. About 22% is thought to be composed of dark matter. The remaining 74% is thought to consist of dark energy, an even stranger component, distributed diffusely in space, which probably cannot be thought of as ordinary particles. Determining the nature of this missing mass is one of the most important problems in modern cosmology and particle physics.

Harry now understood the dense gravitational wave that Tiamat spoke of, were in reality made up of dark energy triggered by magical energy. That is why only the staff could transmute a very specific set of energy signatures. In other words, only a powerful and specific magical energy signature would cause the light bender stone to convert the magical energy into dark energy. The dark energy in return opened the parallel gateways. All other magical energy would cause the staff to act as an overly large and powerful wand.

Now that Harry thought about it, Tiamat did day that they had found this stuff after a meteor shower. How ironic he thought that it took people with magical ability to see the light bender stones. On the other hand, muggles who probably would have a very hard time seeing the stones had nevertheless proven their existence through theoretical mathematics.

What a weird universe this was, he thought. Maybe after the war, he could send one of the rocks unanimously to one of the prestigious muggle Universities for research. This would get them that much closer to their goal of a unified theory. He knew that at some point, muggles would realize that they were missing an energy source in their equation. For their equations to be complete, they would have to discover magical energy in its raw form. He knew when that day came, the Wizarding world would once again be discovered by muggles.

Harry was brought out of his thoughts when he heard someone knock at his door. Harry looked at his watch and knew it was too early to be Xiana. She was still at their news office. Shrugging his shoulder, he yelled, "Enter."

Brianna opened the door and found Harry by his table with a bunch of books and stones. What in Merlin's name was he working on now, she thought? Shaking her head she sprinted to him and blabbered real fast "HarryweereambushedbyDumbldore..."

"Brianna please slow down, I can't make out a word you're saying." Brianna took some calming breaths and tried again, "Harry, we were ambushed by Dumbledore in the great hall during lunch. He tricked us by spiking all of the juices with Veritaserum. There were some casualties on our side. With Neville's help we were able to organize and fight our way out. Moody is having a debrief at 3:00 p.m." Brianna looked at her brother in law's eyes and could already see that he was pissed. She could see the veins tense up in his neck, and his jaw muscles were popping on and off. He took deep calming breaths and stood up. He then took her hand and apparated both of them to the lair.

Harry expected to find chaos, but instead he found everyone doing a specific job. His regular soldiers were practicing duelling. His tutors and Moody seemed busy reviewing the camera tapes. Harry spotted Neville and Luna and walked towards them. Neville turned around and found Harry coming towards them.

Harry approached Neville and said, "You don't know how glad I am to see the both of you o.k. Thanks for taking charge of the troops mate. I just found out we lost Hannah Abbott and Stewart Akerley. Your quick thinking saved many people today. It's my fault this happened, if I hadn't insisted on binding magical contracts then they would still be alive."

"No Harry, the magical binding contract IS the right thing to do. Don't ever do away with them. We can't afford traitors in our midst. The contract guarantees this. You know as well as I do that during the first war, all of the traitors would have been found out if they had taken loyalty-binding contracts. No one could have foreseen what the goat fucker was going to do." Neville replied.

Harry looked at Neville's face and saw the undeniable truth of his words reflected in his eyes. Luna put a hand on his shoulder. Harry shifted his gaze towards her and once again saw her unwavering faith in him and their cause. She gave him on of her dreamy smile that said everything is going to be o.k.

In a husky voice Harry said, "I want you guys to know that you are more than close friends to me. You're the brother and sister I never had. Having you at my side means more to me than all the gold in my vault. I think the muggle singer John Lennon said it best: "All I need is a little help from my friends" and he was right. Well enough of the mushy stuff, lets get that debrief over with. There are still some preparations to make for tomorrow's trial."

With that, they walked to the centre of the lair and sat around the table. Once they were seated, Moody began the analysis by showing the camera tape on the large screen. It took roughly two hours to go over everything. When they were done, the group voted unanimously to spend more time on learning muggle style sign language.

After supper, it was agreed that the students wouldn't be returning to class until Dumbledore was dealt with. First, they needed to curtail Dumbledore's powers and influence in the castle. Harry made sure that all of his troops were comfortable in the trunk manors. He told them their training would be stepped up considerably now that they were stuck in the scorpion lair for a wile. With his last minute instructions given, Harry, Xiana, and Remus floo'd back to Potter castle for one last strategy meeting.

**November 14 Late in the Evening Riddle Manor**

Voldemort with a huge grin on his snake like face was currently leaning over a very old book. The book itself had a thin granite cover. The pages were made of thin gold sheets. On the cover of the book, there was an engraved picture of a smoked mirror. Around the mirror were flying dragons. The book itself had been found in the ancient city of Tula in central Mexico.

His expedition team, who had now mostly perished, had initially begun this quest over twenty years ago. Through a stroke of luck, the expedition team had finally stumbled over the tomb of Tezcatlipoca, the Toltec warrior god. In reality, he had been a powerful magical shaman over thirteen hundred years ago. The knowledge contained in this book explained how to control all sorts of magical creatures. The book it turns out also contained ancient spells on runic shields and wards. This book was a rare find indeed. Long lost magical knowledge was next to impossible to find these days.

He had been busy translating the last of the ancient runes. He couldn't wait to see the look on the dragon trainer's faces, when Lord Voldemort commanded their dragons to do his bidding. To his utter shock, the book had spells and rituals that allowed him to communicate with Dementors directly. The book even showed him how to retrieve souls that had been kissed. Contrary to popular belief, when a wizard or witch was kissed the soul didn't die.

The Dementors fed off ambient magic, which in turn they fed to the trapped souls. The trapped souls fed off the ambient raw magic, which they converted to soul magic. Soul magic is what powered Dementors' dark powers. The more souls a Dementor had, the more powerful they were. When Dementors breed, they pick the darkest souls that they posses and through a ritual they convert that soul into a new Dementor.

Voldemort figured he was the most knowledgeable wizard on the planet regarding soul magic. After all had he not conquered death? In the pursuit of that knowledge, he had found a way to integrate a soul into anything. Now that he knew how to communicate with Dementors, he wanted a very important soul to be given back to him. He needed to get down into the caves and talk with them. Perhaps the Dementor he was looking for was there.

Very soon, he would have a powerful alliance and a slew of new wizards and witches enrolled in his army. Their choice was simple. They either joined him, or perished on the desolate rocks of Azkaban. He hoped to get at least sixty percent to come with him. As for the rest, the Dementors would feed very well indeed on the night of the attack.

Speaking of Azkaban, where was that shit for brains Mulciber. Without intelligence and floor plans, it would be impossible to breach Azkaban defences. He needed to take down the breach wards to get in and get out. The anti portkey and anti apparition wards were untouchable. They had far too many anchors and support stones to take them down. If Mulciber and Bella were successful, then he would have the list of wards, spells and their counter. Lord Voldemort knew that getting a hold of these secrets would cost him much money. In fact, it would almost deplete all of his reserve. If his plan worked, it wouldn't matter anyway. Soon, he would have plenty of new recruits to help refill the coffers.

One of his biggest hurdles was that he needed another way to get his troops off the Island. They would expect him to portkey, or fly them out. What if they swam instead? They would never expect them to go underwater to make their escape that's for sure. This time of year, the northern seawaters were brutally cold.

There were several ways to get around underwater. One was self-transfiguration. That was an iffy proposition at best. Contrary to popular belief most wizards and witches sucked at self-transfiguration. He kept thinking about his options when he heard the front doors leading to the throne open up. Voldemort could see Mulciber and Bella sauntering over with several books and some large parchments.

"Finally, what took you so long?"

Mulciber replied in a stuttering voice and said, "Me Lord, our contacts were late. The agents were busy in the Upper House. Apparently, Potter is bringing Dumbledore to justice. Supposedly, the Potter brat has found out that Dumbledore had manipulated him his whole life. We told our agents how to vote on Fudge's proposal. Our last agent to show up was detained in the hall of records. He had to Obliviate the records keeper."

Lord Voldemort roared with laughter. Bella and Mulciber laughed at seeing their Lord in such good humor. He finally managed to get a hold of himself and said, "What fools they are. Let the light side attack each other. This will make it that much easier for us to take over. You both have done well. Come, let us finalize our plans."

They both followed their master to the strategy room. Voldemort turned around and bellowed, "Rat! Front and center now." A very ugly and balding man with a silvery hand came through one of the doors and dropped at his master's feet.

Voldemort sneered and said, "Get up you pathetic excuse for a Death Eater. I want to know if you have a plan for getting us wands. Our prisoners are going to need wands Wormtail."

" Ya,ha,yeeess,yeesss my Lord. I have a window of opportunity tomorrow. Most of the security is going to be at the trial. Ollivander should be easy picking. I'll need some backup master."

"Very well, take Irvine and Mulciber with you. Do not fail me Wormtail."

"Never master, never."

"We'll see Wormtail. We'll see."

**November 15 Early Afternoon Potter Castle**

Harry woke up early to prepare for his day. He was going over his checklist. Storage trunk check, two magical bombs check, healing and energy potions check. He was going to wear his full battle gear today. You never knew in these large gatherings who was out for your blood. After yesterday's incident Harry thought, he wouldn't be too surprised if Dumbledore hired a hit wizard to take him out. Harry pictured how he wanted his robes to look like, and hissed a parseltongue illusion charm on his battle robes.

His battle robes shimmered blue for an instant and now looked like the robes an Upper House Lord would wear. They looked like they were made of black silk. On the left side of the robe was the Potter family crest. The crest was a black unicorn facing a gold griffin on a royal blue background. Along the edge of the door were silver snakes. On the right hand side of his robe was the Black family crest. The crest itself was a Hybridian black dragon inlaid on a crimson red background with lightning bolts embroider in white on the outside of the crest. He had let his jet-black hair down, and was now fanned in a crest along his shoulder blades. His final addition was an emerald scorpion earring. He heard Xiana calling to him and made his way downstairs.

Xiana was putting the final changes on her royal blue robes when she saw her husband walking down the stairs. First thing, she noticed was his flowing jet-black hair, and his glowing green emerald orbs. The robes he was wearing were stunning. He had both the Potter and Black family crest to which he was heir too. He was for the lack of a better word stunning. She could feel the power and confidence rolling off him. The robes accentuated his imposing height and physique. She was so turned on right now she could shag him on the couch until he passed out.

Harry looked at his wife and saw the hungry look in her eyes. Well, he knew he was going to be busy tonight. He came down and said, "Babe, if I do say so myself you look gorgeous." He gently lifted her chin and gave kissed her.

"Damn Potter, do you know what you're doing to me right now?" She smirked.

"I know love; just keep these thoughts until tonight. Believe me, just looking at you and I want to shag for the rest of the day. First, let's go kick Dumbledore's old wrinkled ass."

"Eeewww," She made a face at him. Xiana took one last look at her robe and furrowed her brows and said, "Love, how much longer do I have to disillusion the Potter crest on my robes? Dam it all to hell! I'm a Potter and don't care if the world knows it or not. I'm sick of hiding who I am. I want the world to know that I am the wife of Harry James Potter. "

"I know love. It won't be much longer. I have a feeling that the world is going to learn very soon that the Scorpion Sorcerer and Harry Potter are one in the same. On that day, we will no longer hide who we are." Harry kissed Xiana and made their way to the fireplace. They floo'd to Zabini manor and met the rest of the family. They left Zabini manor and floo'd to the ministry building. They met Remus, the twins, and Moody. Moody came so that he could consult with some of his unspeakable friends. For the twins, it was something about teaching a lesson to their younger brother on why it's not nice to be throwing _Crucio_ at your sister. Xiana, her mother, Brianna, Theo, Blaise, and Ginny went to get clearance so that they could be in the spectator isle.

Harry followed Michael through a different set of doors. They needed to be cleared so they could be admitted to the main floor. On their way there, they ran into Dumbledore and his crowd. They looked at each other and both men narrowed their eyes at each other. Before anyone had the chance to say anything, Molly Weasley pushed past her husband and rounded on Harry with surprising speed and without warning went to slap him in the face. The hand however never connected. Years of Quidditch and duelling practice had honed Harry's reflex to peek condition.

He caught her hand, and squeezed hard. The Weasley matriarch cried out in pain. Arthur Weasley rounded on Harry and levelled his wand at him and with venom in his voice said, "You have three seconds to let her go if you know what's good for you boy."

Harry threw her hand away from him and slowly turned his gaze towards Arthur and replied, "How on earth I ever considered you family is now completely beyond my comprehension. Your nothing but a bunch of prejudiced sycophants blindly following a has been. Tell me, is he worth it? You've already lost half your family because they don't believe in the status quo system that Dumbledore loves so much. Your blind loyalty and refusal to analyze the facts and think for yourselves have ensured that your family will stay split. You've certainly shown your true colors where other magical creatures are concerned. Don't expect Bill to invite you to his home."

Molly took this time to bellow, "Enough! You are the cause of my family's breakup. Dumbledore is right, you will be the next Dark Lord."

Michael decided to step in before it came down to wands. He had no doubt that his son in law could wipe the floor with that lot, but there were greater strategic issues at stake. Michael cut in and said, "Enough, you will cease speaking with my client. You want to fight, then do it in the courtroom. Not here. "

Harry understood the underlying massage and simply nodded. He followed his father in law to the security chamber. Harry could feel some sophisticated detection wards wash over him. He let out a sigh of relief when no alarm sounded. He gave the Auror his old holly wand. His other two new wands remained concealed. The basilisk boots and holster coupled with his own brand of charms made sure that nobody could detect them. Harry felt as secure as he ever was in these situations.

They walked past a huge set of bronze doors and stepped into what could only be described as a time capsule. The Wizengamot courtroom looked like an exact replica of the Roman senate during Gaius Julius Caesar's reign. His father in law had told him what to expect, however, to live it in its totality was a bit surreal. The place looked magnificent there were no other words to describe it.

Digging into his Occlumency folders, he found the one on ancient muggle architecture. The courtroom looked a lot like the ancient Roman Pantheon. The building was circular with a portico of three ranks of huge granite Corinthian columns. There were eight in the first rank, with two groups of four behind under a pediment opening into the rotunda, under a coffered, granite dome, with a central opening also known as the Great Eye, which was open to the sky. A rectangular structure seems to link the portico with the rotunda. In the walls at the back of the portico were niches for statues of Merlin, Morgana le Fay, along with four other statues, which looked remarkably like the four founders of Hogwarts.

On either side of the main floor, between the huge marble columns were the spectator seats. The main floor seemed to be split into factions. To the north of the main floor, one could see a set of marble stairs leading to upper and lower semi circular rings. The rings apparently seated the Lords. The lower ring, which seated the lower house Lords, was made of black marble. The upper ring, which seated the upper house Lords, was made of white marble. Below the lower ring, was a white marble chair with a set of gold scales floating above the chair? This chair was supposed to be the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Since Dumbledore held that position and was now on trial, the chair would be filled by one of the senior jurors from the ministry's law enforcement department.

A bronze door opened to the left of the chamber and a man dressed in white robes with Celtic runes slowly made his way to the chair. He was carrying an ivory staff with a mace like ball at the bottom of the staff ending with crystal ball sitting on top of a golden dragon's head. He made it to the chair and turned towards the audience and said, "I, Rufus Scrimgeour will be acting Chief Warlock and primary juror for these proceedings."

He took the staff and tapped it three times on the granite slate and Harry could see small tendrils of energy emanate from the bottom of the staff. Scrimgeour bellowed, "The _**Pentakrem**_ is now in session. I would like to call forth the accusers to stage their charges."

Harry watched his father in law slowly make his way to the podium to address the House of Lords. He was wearing a beautiful emerald green robe with black Celtic runes embroider on the lapels. The back of his robes had a large replica of Stone Henge. Harry smirked - his mother in law was a staunch druid follower. Harry couldn't fault her. The magical powers of the ancient Celtic druids were unmatched anywhere.

Michael took his time getting to the podium. The stakes have never been higher. The game was afoot. He reached the podium and took his time scanning the audience and the House of Lords. With a confident and booming voice he bellowed, "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, you stand accused of violating some of our most coveted laws. You sir violated the Edict of 1124 as stipulated by Charlemagne and passed by the House of Lords concerning Wizarding wills and titles. Your second violation is your failure to divulge critical information pertaining to Heir vaults. You failed the financial decree of 1491, paragraph six, subsection E. Ladies and Gentlemen of the court, as these irrefutable records will indicate. Dumbledore wilfully withheld information on my client's true financial status and illegally stole from his trust vault without his knowledge. Dumbledore also saw fit to forge his signature of said transactions. Finally, we come to our third violation. This violation charges Dumbledore with intent to cause psychological and bodily harm to his person during his six years of education at Hogwarts."

Once the charges were read, the spectator booths exploded into shouts and accusations from both sides of the floor. Even the House of Lords were eyeing each other with suspicion. Scrimgeour lifted his staff and hit the granite slate while bellowing, " QUIET! This court will not tolerate dissension. Spectators will hold their tongues or be forcibly removed from these proceedings. "

Scrimgeour then rounded on Dumbledore and asked, "How do you Plead? You may make your statement at the podium."

With a wariness belying his age, Dumbledore made his way to the podium. Inside however he was seething with rage. For the hundredth time, he wondered how in the world the Potter brat had bested him. Everything was going so good until the little shit developed a brain. He finally reached the podium and addressed the House of Lords by saying, "On the first two counts I plead guilty. On the last count, I plead not guilty. I know that some of you are shocked, but please let me try to explain the context under which I made those decisions. "

Scrimgeour turned towards the House of Lords and said," The evidence pertaining to the first two violations are irrefutable. Albus Dumbledore has asked permission to address the court to allow him to shed light on his decisions. Those of you in favor cast _Lumos_."

Scrimgeour counted the votes and said, "The court will allow Dumbledore to speak."

With his hands clasped behind his back, Dumbledore looked at the crowd and slowly turned his gaze to the House of Lords and said, "You must understand that the decisions I made have always been for the greater good. You see, to understand the decisions that were made, we need to go back to that awful Halloween night back in 1981. A couple of years before that night, a seer by the name of Sybil Trelawney made a prediction concerning a child who would have the power to defeat Voldemort and that the Dark Lord would mark him as his equal. That night Voldemort for whatever reason decided that the Potter child would be his downfall. We all know what happened after that. What you have to remember was that all of his supporters were still out there and would have stopped at nothing to finish their master's job. On that night, quick decisions needed to be made. The child needed to be kept safe until he was ready to meet his final destiny...etc."

Dumbledore gave them his full explanations on why he overlooked these laws. Dumbledore finished by saying, "So you see, until recently I still believed that using the scar was the only way to defeat Voldemort. I make no apologies for trying to make the right decisions to defeat Voldemort."

Meanwhile, Ron Weasley was sitting in the isles looking at the proceedings and feeling completely bored and hungry. He looked at his former best friend and sneered. He whispered to Hermione, "I hope the bloody boy who just won't die gets his lawsuit thrown back in his face. I'm going to get something to eat, do you want anything?"

Hermione looked at her boyfriend and replied, "No, thank you Ronald."

Meanwhile, two other figures on the opposite isles were watching Ronald Weasley very carefully. The moment he left, both figures left their seat. They had a little rendezvous to keep.

Ron simply nodded and left. He silently slipped past the courtroom and made his way to the snack bar. He bought quite a bit of pumpkin pastries, and a slice of cinnamon loaf and two raspberry stuffed pastries. George was the first one to spot the jealous git. He and Fred positioned themselves behind one of the statues and cast a disillusion charm on themselves. The twins waited until he was passing the statue and together synchronized their spells. Fred cast _Silencio, Petrificus-Totallus_. George cast _Accio _Ron.

Ron was quite bewildered. One minute he is walking with pastries in his arms and the next moment he is facing the twin menace from hell. Ron was about to scream for help, but found himself silent. The next question that came to his mind was how in hell could they still have their wands?

Fred was the first to whisper, "Hello you little git. We heard all about the fight that took place in the great hall yesterday."

"We also know that you shot a _Crucio_ spell at our little Gin, Gin. Now, that wasn't nice was it?" George sneered.

Fred continued, "Remember little brother, nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge."

George pulled a little box from his pocket and said, "You see this little vial. That dear brother is over a months worth of hard work. This is one of the potions, which make up our PPP box. By the way, PPP stands for puss, pestilence and pain." Fred had gathered all of his food and emptied the vial over several food items.

With a very evil grin on his face, Gorge cast _Obliviate- Momerati_. This modified form of _Obliviate_ acted as a time delay block. Little Ronniekins would remember everything in about three hours. Cackling evilly, the twin's made their way back to their side of the isle.

Back on the main floor, Michael walked up to the podium and looking at the Lords bellowed, "Albus Dumbledore! Who made you king of Britannia? How dare you insinuate that all of your decisions were for the greater good? Your theory of the link was proven false and in the process of indulging your whims, an innocent boy had to endure physiological and physical abuse at the hands of the worst sort of muggles. You told us how imperative it was for Harry James Potter to be kept safe from Death Eaters and Voldemort himself. Therefore, you dumped an innocent baby on muggles who hate anything to do with magic and by proxy hate anything to do with Harry Potter. You condemned him to thirteen years of hell on earth."

Michael surveyed the crowd and took a sip of cold ice pumpkin juice. He suddenly whirled on Dumbledore and continued his rant, "You claim to not have known that he was mistreated, yet you had one Arabella Figg from your Order of the Phoenix keep tabs on young Harry. Let's take Hogwarts acceptance letters. You as headmaster have to approve each and everyone off them. Harry Potter's was sent at the following address. The letter showed Surrey, Little Winging, #4 Privet Drive, cupboard under the stairs?"

Turning around to face the House of Lords, Michael continued, "Now I ask each and every Lord on this court who have had or taken care of children. In your opinion, is it normal to have a child live in a cupboard? Now to top it all off, the reason Harry Potter had to endure this hell was because one of our most cherished laws was broken. There is a reason why the wills and inheritance decisions as set out by parents in our world MUST NEVER be broken. Terrible consequences can befall those who have broken this special magical bond. At this point in time I would like to call on Harry James Potter to explain to us the third logic regarding the violation."

Harry looked around the hall from one side of the isle to the other. He stopped at a particular spot in the far corner where he spotted a Vampiric shield. He smirked at the being, and slowly turned his gaze back towards the House of Lords. He quickly brought to memory the Lords, which had been targeted for termination. He smirked and rose to his full height. He moved toward the podium with grace and power.

That day many people in the court would remember many things from looking at the boy-who-lived. Some would remember his incredible physique. Many witches were left hungry that day. Others would remember his eyes. Those deep glowing emerald orbs that looked eerily like the color of the _Avada-Kadavra_ curse. One thing that every one could agree on that day was the sheer power of his magical aura and the might of his personality.

Meanwhile, unknown to all of the people in the court, one very old vampire was paying particularly close attention to one particular individual. Methuselah Nicademus of the Camarilla had been very busy this last week. He had been reading the ancient text, and reviewing all he knew about Gehenna Black Raven prophecy. _A child born to ancient blood, He would bear the mark of the element cast by the dark. He would suffer greatly under the false prophet. He would be reborn from the ashes of neglect, and betrayal. The power of old would awaken once more. The scorpions would awaken to battle the three standards. Three seals were doomed to failure; Fate would not be denied her just reward. The black phoenix would rise again to seek justice from the dark. From the ashes of Armageddon, a new world would arise. Etosha would once again rise._

It had been a stroke of luck Nicademus thought to be in this court. He remembered seeing the daily prophet, in the reception area a week ago. He had perhaps read the bloody paper twice in the last six hundred years. Nicademus didn't waste much time on the affairs of witches and wizards. Usually if there was something important, his underlings made sure he knew about it.

The front cover that day had caught his attention. The cover showed a picture of a very old wizard and a young boy. After searching his memory, he recognized the young face as that of the boy-who-lived. For some reason he had noticed the lighting bolt scar and suddenly a verse in the prophecy clicked. He had spent the remaining week going over the ancient prophecy. Here he was a week later, sitting in an ancient court putting the pieces together.

He now had to figure out who the standards were. Nicademus was brought out of his musing when he felt a gentle magical probe rest on his person. Without panicking, Nicademus began looking towards the senate floor, when he spotted the boy-who-lived looking at him. Nicademus couldn't believe what he was seeing. Vampiric illusion wards are better than Wizarding ones by a long stretch, yet this boy knew where to find him and saw him smirk in his direction. Nicademus could only stare at this boy and smirk back. Yes, he thought, the young man certainly fit many aspects of the ancient prophecy. He needed more information on the boy-who-lived.

Harry began his speech, "I'm sure many of you are wondering why I'm confronting the great and powerful Albus Dumbledore. The simple truth is that I want justice rendered for the wrongs this man has perpetrated on my parents and me. It has taken me a while to realize who Albus Dumbledore really is. This man whom you think is the champion of the light is in fact a wolf in sheep's clothing. Once I managed to throw off his grandfatherly act, I finally realized that he had been manipulating me ever since he gained knowledge of the prophecy. I began to analyze all of the trials and tribulations, which were thrown my way year after year since I started my magical education at Hogwarts. It became obvious that he was using me, and my unwanted fame as an icon to rally forces to his Light banner. He tried to make me believe that I should save everyone. He was trying to make me the hero I never wanted to be."

Harry paused to gage the audience and the House of Lords. Satisfied with the expectant look on their faces he continued, "From the very beginning, the puppet master has been pulling my strings. When I was a first year student, he gave me the means to confront Voldemort for the Philosopher's Stone instead of protecting it himself. Do you really believe that a wizard as powerful as he, a man who claims to have fought the dark forces for over a century, had not detected Voldemort's dark essence residing in his DADA teacher for a whole year? Dumbledore set up my whole first year so that it was I, and no one else, who would have to face the Dark Lord and thwart his plans in obtaining Nicholas Flamel's Philosopher Stone. Dumbledore almost had Voldemort resurrect himself right under his nose."

Harry paused and took a sip of water. He looked around to see many people whispering. Harry continued, "During my second year, there was the great debacle about the Chamber of Secrets. Fawkes, his phoenix, could have teleported Ginny Weasley, a girl who was taken as a hostage by Voldemort, from the Chamber of Secrets anytime, yet he let me face a full-grown Basilisk at twelve with only a sword. All along, the headmaster could have stepped in and prevented me from facing such a dangerous creature. Yet, he did nothing. In my third year, I found out that my godfather Sirius Black has been innocent all along. How strange that the person who should have taken care of me according to my parents will was incarcerated for thirteen years without a trial. How in the name of God, does anyone get sent to Azkaban without a trial? Again that year my life was in jeopardy. I had to fend off Dementors, werewolf and an unregistered rat animagus by the name of Peter Pettigrew. He was the one who was secret keeper to my parents, on Dumbledore's suggestion. Now the plot thickens."

Harry paused once more to let his words sink in and continued, "With all of the events, my most trying year was yet to come. The year of the Tri-Wizard Tournament was a bell ringer for me. The whole thing could have been called off if they had given me a dose of Veritaserum and found out that I never put my name in the goblet. There was a reason why you had to be seventeen years old in order to participate. On age alone I didn't meet the requirements. As an organizer of the tournament, and a judge, and headmaster of Hogwarts, Dumbledore could have prevented my entry in the tournament at anytime. That year I was forced to fight Dragons, Acromantula, giant Crabs, Sphinx, and not least Voldemort himself during his re-birthing ceremony. That year I had to watch a good friend get _Avada Kedavra_ in front of me by Peter Pettigrew. To top it all off, I was shipped back to my abusive muggles and kept completely isolated. All on Dumbledore's orders of course."

At that moment, Harry heard a disgusting noise. He turned towards the isle to see a white looking Ronald Weasley flatulence a yellow/green gas cloud and shit himself. He heard the beaver berate Weasley for his disgusting behavior. Harry could see people fainting in their vicinity. He suddenly heard the unmistakable howl of the Twins from the other side of the isle. Harry was now biting his lips to prevent himself from rolling on the floor.

Scrimgeour tapped his staff and bellowed, "Aurors, you will remove these peons from my court. They are banned from any future court proceedings until they have taken an etiquette course."

Harry stifling his laugh, waited for the commotion to die down. When order was restored Harry addressed the court one last time and said, "My fifth year at Hogwarts is when I began to question everything that had been fed to me. I began to realize, that I had been kept ignorant of our world for a reason. I began to realize that I had been controlled from the time my parents died. I was kept ignorant of my status as a Lord, ignorant of my family vaults, ignorant of our law system. I was forced to follow one man's every whim without question. Finally, the Slytherin in me woke up and demanded answers. Once the answers began to flow, I realized that my whole life had been an illusion. I was nothing but a pawn, a weapon to be sacrificed when the time was right. I'm here to tell you that I am no longer anyone's pawn. I am no one's chosen one. I decide when to fight. I AM THE MASTER OF MY DESTINY."

Harry looked around the courtroom and continued, "Again, how many of you have read the Daily Prophet this morning? The _headmaster_ once again for the greater good disregarded the laws concerning the use of Veritaserum on underage wizards and witches and proceeded to spike their beverages. In the process, he killed two students. Are the educational standards in Britain so low that we are forced to accept criminals for teachers and headmasters? All I ask is that justice be done. Thank you for your time." With that Harry bowed to the Lords and went to sit down.

Michael leaned over and whispered, "That was very well done Harry. You had the Lords listening to every word."

Rufus Scrimgeour stood up and said, "Does the defence wish to cross examine?"

Dumbledore stood up with his eyes twinkling and with an air of confidence replied, "I don't see the point."

"Very well then. Lords you have seen the evidence, and heard the testimonials. Both houses will retreat to cast judgment. You will deliberate for thirty minutes, at which point you will come back and give us your verdict."

Harry and Michael were talking about houses and renovations. Thirty minutes passed fairly quickly and the House of Lords came back. The senior Lord came and gave a parchment to Scrimgeour. He took his staff and pounded on the floor, at the same time he bellowed,"Silence."

"The Plaintiff and Defendant will both rise." They did as they were told.

Scrimgeour cleared his throat and said, "Albus Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, you were found guilty of all three violations. As a result of your criminal acts, you will henceforth be removed as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. You are also removed as Supreme Mugwump from the International Confederation of Wizards. You will never again be allowed any kind of influence within the Wizengamot body. Due to your past contributions fighting dark wizards, namely Grindelwald, we allowed you to stay as headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. However, you will have to share that position with an appointed ministry educator. All school rules, balls and educational changes will have to be agreed by your counter part and approved by the board of governors. It is clear that over time you have abused the power and privileges of your office. You have the rest of the day to clear out your offices."

Harry chanced a look towards the headmaster and noticed all the color drain from his face. It looks like the old coot never expected this outcome, he thought. It was one of the many things that the headmaster shared with Voldemort, and that was over confidence. Harry could see the headmaster's emotions fighting for dominance. He could see shock, disappointment, resignation, and finally anger. The headmaster turned his head towards Harry's position and gave them a look of pure loathing. Harry simply smirked, which seemed to enrage him further. Harry heard Scrimgeour bang his staff once more.

"As you all know, we are in a state of war. Voldemort has come back, and the Wizengamot cannot function without its Chief Warlock. Under the Cypriot charter, article 3, sub paragraph (d). The House of Lords will vote for a new Chief Warlock. The Lower House Lords will nominate candidates and through negotiation, and votes will narrow the field to two finalists whom are judged worthy of the position of Chief Warlock. These two finalists will be given to the Upper House Lords for final vote. The lower house will now retreat to the antechamber to cast their votes."

Harry looked at his father in law and gave him a small nod. If Scrimgeour only knew how many Lower House Lords were on the Scorpion's payoff list. It will be interesting to see how long snake face takes to ice his puppets once he finds out he was double crossed. It's much easier to stay in the bliss of _Imperio_ than to fight its effect. Most of these Lords are nothing but weak sheep anyway he thought. They wouldn't have a smidgen of the willpower necessary to overcome its effect.

The Lower House Lords came back after an hour of deliberation, and handed their results to the Upper Lords with a copy to Scrimgeour. Scrimgeour banged his staff again. Harry was getting sick of the idiot banging his staff. He was going to shove that bloody stick up his ass real soon if he didn't stop. Scrimgeour bellowed, "Our two final candidates for position of Chief Warlock are Michael Zabini, and Terrence McClain. The Upper House Lords will now deliberate in the antechamber to pick the new Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot."

As anticipated, the Upper House Lords came to a much quicker decision and were back within thirty minutes. The eldest of the Upper Lords handed a parchment to Scrimgeour and took his seat. Scrimgeour banged his staff again, which caused Harry to roll his eyes. Once the court was silent, he announced, "The post for Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot will now be filled by Michael Zabini." Many people in the isles were shouting cheers and clapping. Harry smirked, because he had a good idea who was on the cheering section. He noticed his father in law looking at him and winked. Harry winked back and stood up to go shake Michael's hand. He got close enough to whisper, "Excellent news if I do say so father."

Michael whispered back, "This is a great victory Harry. Now we move to our final phase of the day. I'll see you home later." Harry smiled and gave him a small squeeze on the shoulder.

Harry was making his way back towards the courts security lobby. He was making slow progress as many people came by to congratulate him. He wished that he could be with his wife and the rest of the family to celebrate their victory, but with Dumbledore and his cronies walking about, it was far too dangerous to show his cards yet. The last thing he wanted was for them to discover Xiana and his true ties to the Zabini family. All in good time he thought.

**Late Afternoon, November 15 Potter Castle**

Harry apparated back to Potter castle and went to pick up his storage trunk and magical bombs. He finally removed the Parsel charms on his robes. Harry loved the natural look of his Basilisk battle robes. With a quick look in the mirror, he made sure he had all of his weapons. He looked at his watch and decided to go downstairs to converse with his familiar.

Harry found his familiar soaking up the warmth from the permanent heat charm that was over his home. Harry hissed, _**sss**_ "Anubis, how would you like some action?" _**sss**_

_**sss**_ "That sounds wonderful master, I have been living the good life too much, I need exercise. Are we going to battle?" _**sss**_

Harry couldn't help but smile at his familiar's enthusiasm for battle. Harry hissed back, _**sss**_ "This is more of a search and destroy mission. Mind you, when are these missions ever simple? In all honesty, I don't know if we are going to battle. There is a high chance that we will though." _**sss**_

_**sss**_ "The change of scenery will be good." _**sss**_

Harry opened up his robe and let Anubis wrap himself in a comfortable position. His head was resting on top of his left shoulder. Once they were set, Harry knelt down and pulled out his invisibility cloak. It was best to go undercover for now, until he was sure that all potential threats were neutralized.

Harry concentrated and went deep in his mind. He was looking for specific images of Dumbledore manor that he had downloaded from the old coot's mind a while back. The trick was that he had to say the special password while picturing where he wanted to apparate. From the glimpses that he got from Dumbledore's mind, the manor was under a modified Fidelius charm. Apparently, the keeper was not a person but an object. Harry had never heard of such a thing. Of course, the old bastard had been around for a while, and God only knew what kind of knowledge he kept to himself.

After a minute of sifting, he found several images and a trigger word. One image looked like a parlor and the other was a huge library. Harry decided on the library. Harry had a love of books and he was sure that Dumbledore had books, scrolls, and ancient manuscript that even he didn't possess. Now that he thought about it, there was no need to empty Dumbledore's library. He only wanted books that he didn't have, as for the rest they could burn for all he cared.

" Dobby?"

With a soft pop Dobby appeared in front of him jumping up and down, "You is needing something master?"

"Yes Dobby, I'm going on a mission. The place I'm going too has a large library. However, there is no need to bring back books, which I already have a copy of. Would it be possible for you to bring the Potter library master index book, and compare our book listing with the books, scrolls, and manuscript contained in the other library?"

Dobby thought about it and snapped his fingers and replied, "I is know how to do this master. Dobby simply put glow charm on books we is not have. Can Winky assist Dobby master? Time be much less with Winky help."

"Sure thing Dobby, but you'll have to wait until I call for you. Probably many wards need to be taken down before you can join me. Before I forget, when I call, you must think the word _Errigal_. It's the only way to get past the modified Fidelius. "Harry had no clue what an _Errigal_ was, but he knew it was important.

He just hoped that he had the right password or he might find himself in Antarctica, or worse yet five thousand feet in the Indian Ocean. Harry flicked his wand from its holster, and put his invisibility cloak on. Harry concentrated on the image of the library until he had complete definition and thinking about the word _Errigal, _he apparated to Dumbledore manor.

Harry suddenly found himself in a library. He quickly brought his aura reading abilities to bear and scanned the entire room. As expected there were quite a few wards interlinked with each other. Harry looked up and found an enchanted ceiling. It was almost dark, and Harry could see lighting streak across the sky. It gave the whole place and eerie feeling. Harry found several moving pictures and cast _Immobilus-Tempest_. All of the pictures were immobilized. Last thing he needed was for one of his blasted ancestors to alert Dumbledore.

Harry pulled out a map and took out his cell phone. He wanted a GPS reading to find out where he was in England. His phone beeped and Harry read the coordinates. He pulled out his Atlas map of England and triangulated the coordinates. Damn he thought, according to these coordinates, he was in Northern Ireland on _Aran Island_. Looking slightly to the northeast, he spotted a mountain named _Errigal_.

Harry starred at the map gob smacked until realization damn on him. That evil bastard he thought. All along, he could have put his parents under a different Fidelius, which didn't rely on people. The hate he felt towards Dumbledore was beyond imagining. The only downside to this modification he realized was that if a person was alone and died, the Fidelius being tied to such a large object would go down once the object was destroyed. In the case of a mountain, well the chances of finding the place were next to none. He had used a dark Fidelius, which allowed the caster to become his own secret keeper. It might be worthwhile to cast this from of the Fidelius charm on his property also. This form of the Fidelius would be a nice back up to the ones he already put on his estate. This way if he accidentally died, his estate and family would still be protected.

Harry was about to start working when he felt himself frozen. What the fuck is going on, he thought. Suddenly he heard a small cackling laugh and was rewarded by the presence of an elf. Harry looked at his right hand and was able to identify the elf's curse as a high power-petrifying curse. Not panicking, Harry brought out his body magic and with concentration tried removing the offending block. It was useless he thought, without his wand he couldn't remove the petrifying spell. He should have activated a perimeter alarm charm. Harry was pissed at himself for being so careless. Harry could feel Anubis moving up to his shoulders. With a sneer on his face, he waited to see what would happen.

The elf walked around to get a good look at the intruder. All he could make out were the two glowing green eyes deep inside a hood. The elf tried several revealing charms but came up empty. The elf finally said, "What is you doing in my master's home? Master will be most pleased to find intruder in home. Master be missing special ingredients for potions. Master likes to play. I go and tell master now."

Harry could let the little bugger ruin his plans. Harry bellowed, "Wait! Why can't we talk a little? I want to know about you. I would like to know your name. Are you the only elf in this manor? How does Dumbledore treat you?"

The elf gave Harry a weird look as if to say, why is wizard talking to me, but answered him, "My names be Grindelwald. My master be real mad if find intruder in home. I go now and bring master back."

"Wait! I would like to speak to the senior elf."

To his surprise, the little elf became quite agitated. In an enraged voice the elf said, "Grindelwald is only elf needed for Dumbee manor. I be only protector."

Seeing as the elf didn't seem to be all there. He knew just how to get out of this situation. Harry knew he was taking a big risk. Elves were capable of doing powerful and destructive magic when angered. He sent a telepathic message to Anubis and in a mocking voice replied, "I'm sorry, but you don't look much like a protector. In fact, I get the feeling you can't do much period."

The elf lost his composure and with a feral look on his face, marched right up to him. He raised his left hand towards his face and pointed a glowing finger between his eyes and hissed, "Perhaps is time Grindelwald teach little wizard a lesson in magic's."

The elf flicked his eyes inside the hood and spotted two glowing sapphire eyes. The elf immediately brought his right hand up, but it was too late. Anubis struck with lighting speed and bit the elf on his eyeball, and scalp. The eye popped like a balloon, spraying eye goo everywhere. Within seconds, the elf dropped to the ground trashing. Harry could see the color of his skin changing. With one last breath, the elf arched his back with his hands clutching his face. The elf was as dry as a mummy. The moment the elf died, his petrifying spell dissipated.

Harry hissed, _**sss**_ "Thank you great one. I'll make sure to get you a large box of your favorite treats." _**sss**_

Anubis replied, _**sss **_"It was my pleasure master. His magic tasted sweet. If we find more can I have them?" _**sss **_

Harry hissed back, _**sss**_ " If we find more, they are yours great one." _**sss**_ Harry was reminded of a quote, 'Somewhere out there is the beast and he's hungry tonight'. He thought the quote to be quite fitting where Anubis was concerned.

Why did the old goat name his elf Grindelwald? Probably this made him feel superior every time he saw the elf, he thought. Harry looked down at the elf, and banished his remains outside. No sense having his house elves freak out.

Harry looked at his watch, and got right down to business. He started casting every curse, ward, and jinx-revealing spell from his arsenal. To his surprise, the place had very little traps or nasty curses. The old fool probably thought that his form of the Fidelius was all he needed for protection. There was a definite lesson to be learned about overconfidence in anything. Harry was using his magical aura reading capability to its full power. He didn't want to miss anything. He ended up removing over a dozen curses and an illusion ward around the north section of the library. When he was satisfied that the library was clear he called his elves.

Through their link, Harry called Dobby and Winky. Within a minute, they were standing in front of him. Harry got down to their level and said, "All right, I've finished removing all of the curses I could think of. However, please feel free to use you brand of magic to make sure that I haven't missed anything. Now, I'm going to explore the upper floors. Use the storage trunk to transfer the books you collect. Don't wander away from the library. When I'm done up there I'll meet you back here." Both elves nodded their heads and began their work.

Harry scanned the stairway to make sure it was clear. He put on his invisibility cloak, and began making his way up the second level. The second floor had at least twelve bedrooms and a master suite as far as he could tell. There were knights, and other statues at every second door. Harry immobilized all of the paintings and was about to search the first bedroom when his scan revealed something odd about the statues and knights. Upon closer inspection, he found that they were warded and jinxed to attack anyone not keyed to the bedroom ward.

Harry got to work removing the bedroom wards and blasting the statues to smithereens. The last thing he needed was another surprise attack. Harry took out his sword and began inspecting each bedroom. The first five rooms were nothing but regular bedrooms. In one of the rooms, he found a decked up ten pin bowling area. Upon closer inspection, he found the pins had moving pictures of naked Hags on them. Harry's eyebrows nearly rose to his hairline at this revelation. Who would have thought that the great light wizard of the century had a fetish for naked hags? Harry shook his head and kept exploring the rooms.

He finally reached the master bedroom and cautiously opened it. He peeked inside and found a large canopy bed made of solid red oak. There was an adjacent bathroom and a private office. Harry went through the desk but found nothing but junk. He brought out his aura reading to bear and scanned all of the adjacent rooms but found nothing. He was about to leave the master bedroom when he happened to look at the large mirror sitting on the dresser. He noticed dark ward lines emanating behind the mirror. He pulled back the dresser with the mirror and could now clearly see the wards on the wall.

He quickly recognized the blood ward guarding the illusion ward. What ever was behind the blood ward had to be pretty valuable, and Harry wanted it. The most pressing problem at the moment was how to deal with the blood ward. He certainly didn't have any of Dumbledore's blood in his possession. The elf mentioned something about the old coot playing with his potion kit. Perhaps he could find some of his blood in his potions lab. Surely a manor such as this had to have a potions lab.

Harry looked at his watch and nearly hexed himself. What a stupid moron he was. The moment he came here he should have activated his watch to get a lay out of the place and find out where the enemy was located. Getting real sloppy, he thought. He pressed the crystals and completed a full 360-degree turn. Suddenly a map appeared which showed him the location of the potion lab. Down the dungeons we go, he thought. Over half an hour later, Harry came back to the master bedroom with a small vial of blood. He sure hoped it was Dumbledore's. Who would have thought that the great light wizard of the age was using dark arts to ward his house? Harry drew a series of six runes around the ward. He then poured a drop of blood on each rune and waited. He wasn't disappointed. The runes glowed an eerie blue, then red and finally black. The last of the runes disappeared and the ward came down. Harry removed the illusion charm and noticed a muggle type safe. Harry made quick work of the safes door and what came next would stay burned in his mind for a very long time. Before him lay two Philosopher's stones. Both stones were lying on top of old tomes and diaries.

Harry just stared at the stones and kept opening and closing his mouth. One of the stones he immediately recognized from his first year trial. The second stone was slightly bigger and almost had the shape of a heart. Behind that was another book which looked ancient. Again, Harry was shocked. Here was a copy of the book of _Azuli and the Halls of Ma' Ati _also known at the book of the dead. There were a few other books, which seemed interesting. Harry looked back at the Philosopher's stone and couldn't help feeling sorrow for the great Alchemist Nicholas Flamel. I'll bet he never thought that his so-called friend would double cross him and lead him to his death. Harry remembered reading the article in the Daily Prophet on the life and times of Nicholas Flamel. The Flamel's had passed away and the editorial had been a tribute to the famous wizard.

Harry couldn't figure out why there was a second stone. He hoped the tomes and diaries held some sort of explanation. There was an obvious reason why Dumbledore wanted the stone. He couldn't help remembering another of the headmaster's favorite quote, 'Death is but the next great adventure.' It sure looks like the headmaster fears death like everyone else. Another bullshit quote from the master puppeteer, he thought. Not wasting anymore time, Harry cleaned out the safe and went downstairs to see how Dobby and Winky were doing.

Harry went back to the library and spotted Dobby, "Dobby! How is the collection coming along?"

Dobby looked up from the storage trunk with his big tennis ball eyes and replied, "Dobby and Winky be done in five minutes master."

Harry nodded and went inside the storage trunk. He went into the fourth chamber and put the stones and the books in the safe. He warded it and went into the fifth compartment to pick up his magical bombs. He came out of the trunk just as Winky was coming with the last load of books. When she was done, Harry sealed and reduced the trunk. He secured the pocket book size trunk inside his battle robe and told his elves to get back to Potter manor. When they were gone, Harry went upstairs and placed one of his bombs with a twenty-minute delay. Harry went in every room and conjured propane fog. He made his way back to the library and planted another Naquadah bomb there. He then conjured propane fog throughout the first floor. When he was done he apparated within a kilometer of the manor and waited.

Harry looked at his watch and dropped flat on the ground and covered his ears. Suddenly, he heard and felt the tremendous explosion, which shook the grounds and caused a pressure wave that sent debris flying overhead. Harry waited a minute before getting back on his feet and noticed for the second time a massive column of swirling electric blue fire. As before the blue fire consumed everything it touched. The foundation of the Manor was also turned into slag. Harry took his wand and looking above where the manor once stood he hissed "_Ahak-Nakeb_." A large scorpion appeared above the manor with its stinger moving back and forth.

With a malicious glint in his eyes Harry whispered, "Reap the world winds mother fucker. This is for all the people you fucked over Dumbledore. Today I took your prestige and your home. Soon, I'll take your life. Let's see how you handle this loss." With that Harry apparated back to Potter castle.

Meanwhile back at the ministry of magic, Dumbledore was still seething in rage. He had those bastards in his pocket, how dare they turn on him after everything he did for them. It was time to take the kid gloves off and show them the error of their ways. This was a major blow to his plans. It had taken decades to nurture and put into place people who would do his bidding. He was putting one of the last items in his trunk, when he felt a tremendous cold down his spine. The second thing he felt was a weight lifting from his magical core. The color on his face suddenly drained, as he recognized the implication of the signs. How can this be he thought, it's impossible. He dropped what he was doing and ran to the nearest apparition point. Within minutes, he had apparated to his home outside the now non-existent wards.

Dumbledore couldn't believe what was happening. The Dumbledore ancestral manor was nothing more than a slagheap. He looked up in the sky and noticed a large scorpion. Looking at the blasted scorpion, he lost control of his aura and with pure venom cast _Relegatio_. A pale blue light shot from his wand and struck the scorpion. The lights intertwined until both were gone from the night sky.

The realization of what it meant to lose his home suddenly hit him like a battering ram to the head. He didn't really care about the money. The books he had a copy of most of them stashed in his Gringotts vault. The biggest losses were the stones. He needed the stones to create a new body. The biggest question he had was HOW? How had that dark bastard learned where his home was located? He kept that information behind his strongest Occlumency shields. He had never felt so frustrated. Nothing was adding up, and his enemy had him in the cross hairs. Was this his retribution for the death of those insignificant brats? He had to get a grip on himself. Merlin be praised, he still had other properties where he could relocate. You don't live to be 154 years old and not acquire assets. He needed to pull back and analyze the situation.

He came very close today to just chuck the headmaster position and tell the ministry to kiss his ass. The only thing that kept him was the fact that he needed the school resources for his long term plans. Through the school, he was able to get the rare ingredients he needed for his research. Losing the stones had set him back at least a decade if not two. He had enough elixir stashed in his vault to see him through though. He had been so close to success in making the third stone. If he ever found who this Scorpion Sorcerer was, he was going to make him eat his own intestines. With that thought in mind, he apparated back to the ministry of magic.

**November 15, 9:30 pm Potter Castle**

Harry apparated back to his library, and took out the storage trunk. He called his other two elves Dez and Rico.

Both elves showed up arguing over the results of some mineral scan. Dez looked up at Harry and said, " What is you need Mater Harry Potter sir?"

"I have some books in the storage trunk that need to be cataloged in the master index book, and put away in the library. We should have enough shelves for these, but if not then please expand the library as you see fit."

Dez and Rico bowed, and with gusto got to their new assignment. Harry went down in the trunk and picked up the diaries, tomes and the stones and apparated to the master bedroom. He went to his desk and opened the left lower door, which contained a safe. He stowed the books and stones there, and put several wards on the safe.

With all of the new information Tiamat had given him, and the discovery on the Philosopher stones, and the fact that he needed to build a staff, record his new knowledge and get prepared to meet all of the other magical races essentially spelled flux time. His next meeting was on November 20 with the Vampire clans. Four months in flux time should be enough. This would also give him a chance to further train his second batch of recruits. Harry could hear the family gathering downstairs, so he put away his battle robes, showered, and dressed smartly. Making sure he looked his best, he made his way downstairs to celebrate their victory.

Harry spent the rest of the night celebrating with his family and troops. He told his immediate family that the raid on Dumbledore manor had been a success. Two blows in one day for our dear headmaster. Michael was ecstatic. Xiana and the other girls spent the night discussing the paper, the twins, and room decoration. Harry was able to find Remus alone, and told him about all of the new books, which now belonged to Potter library.

He also explained that he had found the Philosopher's stone in Dumbledore manor. Remus was flabbergasted, never had he expected such a discovery. Harry asked Remus to help him research what Dumbledore had been up to, and why there were now two stones.

Harry also told Remus and Xiana that he needed to go into flux time to research, build, and train. Remus let him know that he and Tonks had been thinking about doing more training. After a short strategy meeting, Harry decided to pull all of his inventions team into flux time to finish off their projects. Xiana wasn't too keen on him going but she understood the need for it.

Towards the end of the evening, Harry cornered Neville and Luna and told them about going into flux time to work on his project and prepare protocols for when they met the Vampires. They both agreed. They weren't going back to Hogwarts anyway. They had more pressing things to be done then worrying about Dumbledore spiking their food.

**November 15, 11:30 pm Diagon Alley**

Three figures were slowly making their way to Ollivander shop under a disillusion charm. The leader also known as Wormtail was a balding man with bad breath and teeth. He was always jittery and seemed to speak in a squeaky voice. Tonight however, he seemed to be even more nervous. He stopped across from Ollivander and asked his colleagues to check for wards. Sure enough, there were a series of wards protecting the old establishment.

They whispered among themselves going over the type of wards that were erected. After reviewing the list, Wormtail pulled out a series of spells he had looked up in his master's library and picked up the ones he thought were the best for the job. Wormtail was known for his escaping talents, and information gathering. His talent in blending was tops. His rat form gave him tremendous advantages. However, Wormtail had never been known for his extensive magical knowledge. He tended to miss the finer details when it counted. This night of all night was no different.

The trio managed to disable the wards, but none of them thought to scan a second time once they had breached the front doors. Wormtail was the first one to cross the door threshold. He scanned the area making sure that there was no one present. He cast an illusion ward to make sure no one could see them from the bay window. He motioned for his escort to follow him.

Ollivander had always been a light sleeper. It just so happened that he had finished modifying the family trade book, about an hour ago and had simply crashed in his cot. The stinging on his left arm suddenly awakened him. Someone was in his shop. He cast a disillusion charm on himself and felt the cold feeling sweeping on his body. He then cast a silence charm and carefully made his way downstairs. He was now in his workshop and slowly made his way to the storage area. He was almost there when he heard three voices whispering. Ollivander flattened himself against the wall and waited to see who was invading his shop. It didn't take long for him to spot the Death Eater mask on their faces. They had expanded a trunk and were starting to load wands.

Ollivander calculated his odds and figured he couldn't take on all three. He didn't know if they were new recruits or inner circle members. What was important now was to salvage his mahogany cabinet. This is where he kept his most powerful wands. The strategy was to sow chaos in their ranks. With that thought he picked his the furthest target closest to the door. This way they might think that the attack was coming from the street. He whispered, "_Aquilo-Bipennifer"_. Not expecting an attack from behind, the Death Eater was decapitated on the spot. The body was cut in half, with the intestines and liver falling to the floor. Blood was gushing everywhere. The result was not as he expected. He took out his portkey ring, and ran for it.

Wormtail was the first one to spot him. He was still shaking horribly when he fired his _Avada Kedavra_, which barely missed Ollivander. Wormtail cried, "Get him before he escapes fools." They both took different side of the shop in the hopes of cornering Ollivander.

Ollivander ran to the back of his shop and quickly removed the ward around his cabinet. He touched a rune, which glowed yellow, and the cabinet was portkeyed to a secure location. He then activated his portkey ring and vanished just in time as two Avada-Kedavra spells slammed into the wall where Ollivander had been standing.

Wormtail who was now very agitated, told his partner to get back to the trunk and load as many wands as possible. Wormtail looked at his watch and confirmed that they had only ten minutes.

**November 16, 00:30 am Potter Castle**

Harry was in the master bedroom getting ready for bed when his cell phone rang. He picked it up and found himself speaking to Akima. Harry asked, "Is he safe?" More talking and finally he said, "All right, I'll see him tomorrow. Take care"

He hung the phone and put it on the table. Xiana noticed his frown and said, "What is it love?"

Harry turned around and replied, "Ollivander's was attacked tonight. He barely escaped with his life. Three Death Eaters raided his shop. It would seem that Voldemort is getting ready to make a move. Why would he need wands except to arm a whole lot of people who don't have one? I swear, if I meet Fudge on the battlefield, he's toast."

Xiana rubbed circles on his back, and she could hear a sigh from him. Harry stripped naked and found his wife under the covers. They kissed and held each other tight. They both fell into a blissful sleep their love for each other keeping the world's demons away.


	18. Chapter 17 Alliances and Tidings of War

**Chapter 17 "Alliances and Tidings of War"**

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"_**Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will let it pass over me and through me, and when it has passed I will turn and look down the path where fear has passed, and there will be nothing. Only I will remain."**_

_**-Frank Herbert, Dune**_

**Your words of encouragement as well as constructive criticism are always encouraged and welcomed. **

**Take Care and Enjoy!**

November 16, 6:30 am Potter Castle

Harry woke up to find Xiana sleeping soundly. Not wanting to disturb her, he carefully extricated himself from their bed and made his way to the showers. He had a very long day ahead of him and need to get an early start. After his shower he dressed himself in his full battle robes and went downstairs for a hearty breakfast. Dobby and Winky had been up even earlier and already had a sumptuous breakfast ready for him. Harry couldn't help feeling how lucky he was to have these particular elves as part of the Potter clan. He made his way to the kitchen and sat himself at the table.

Dobby was busy finishing another stack of blueberry waffles when he noticed his master sitting at the table. With gusto he made his way to his master and said, "Master Harry Potter sir, what can Dobby get you this morning?"

"How about some scrambled eggs, back bacon, stewed tomatoes, waffles and a couple cups of your best coffee. "

"You is missing special wizard smoothie sir."

"Special smoothie?"

"Yes master, this be a special creation from Dobby and Winky."

Harry, not having a clue about what Dobby was talking about, said, "Well, what's special about it?"

"It give master lots of energy, and is replenishing magical core much faster. Winky also says that master have much more lead in pencil. Dobby, knows that Winky want large family to take care of."

Harry's face went beet red at that last comment. Oh well, he thought, if they took the time creating it he might as well try it. He looked at Dobby, shrugged his shoulders and said, "Bottoms up."

Dobby smiled and popped back to the kitchen to fetch his breakfast while he mentally reviewed his to do list.

Harry finished his breakfast and went back up to his private study to pick up the books and the Philosopher's Stones. He knew his subconscious had been working on that very enigma. Why would Dumbledore have made another philosophers stone? It would certainly explain his energy levels at nearly 160 years of age. Why did he have the book of _Azuli_? There were so many questions, and no answers. He hoped that his time in flux would answer some of these questions. Harry sighed and stored the stones and books in his bag.

Harry heard the door open and saw Xiana in her bathrobe walking towards him. He smiled and waited for her to reach him. When she was close enough, he grabbed her and kissed her with as much passion as he could muster. He knew he would be gone for the next thirty days and he found his time away from her much harder to take. He heard her moaning. When they were both nearly out of oxygen they broke away.

Xiana replied, "Now that's what I call a kiss."

"What can I say? You bring nothing but the best in me."

"I wish I had more time oh husband of mine, I'm feeling quite passionate myself. They say pregnant women are quite insatiable." She smirked at him.

Harry groaned, "You don't play fair."

"Of course not, I was born a Zabini after all."

Harry put up his hands and said, "Well, I know when I've met my match. I give up."

Harry then turned deathly serious and looked up at his wife's deep blue eyes and said, "Today is going to be difficult for you. Just remember, show no mercy. Those bastards are responsible for more innocent death than I can count. They made their bed with the devil and now it's time to pay the piper."

Harry noticed a blue fire appear in her eyes and almost felt sorry for them. Some long awaited justice was going to be dispensed today, he thought. It was time for their proxy to gain prominence. Nothing else needed to be said. They held hands and walked downstairs together. Once they reached the parlor, they parted. Harry went off to the library and Xiana went off to get some breakfast.

Harry made his way to the family safe and disabled the wards and picked up the jewel chest and the dark stones he had acquired from the cave. He then called Dobby and told him to get fifty pounds of Naquadria and twenty pounds of Rhenium. He needed to make his staff in order to wield the more powerful dark magic.

He did a quick a check to make sure he had everything and made his way to the trunk manor by Anubis' pen. Once he reached the pen he spotted Anubis and hissed, _**sss**_ Great one, I'll be gone for the next two days, I'm counting on you to look after the family. _**sss**_

**sss** Be at peace master, I will not allow any harm to come to my family. **sss**

Harry nodded and vanished the glass pane from Anubis' pen so that he could roam at will. He looked around his home to get a good mental image. Once he was done he apparated to the scorpion lair to meet with Ollivander. Harry slowly made his way towards the command centre and noticed quite a few people who were already up. He made his way towards the breakfast tables and noticed that Ollivander was up and already eating.

Harry approached the old wand maker, when he looked up and noticed him. He immediately stood up and said, "Thank you for harboring me, in my time of need Mr. Potter."

Harry bowed his head toward the old wizard and said, "The pleasure is all mine sir. I hope to make your stay profitable and mutually beneficial to the both of us."

The old mage inclined in head and replied, "The pleasure is all mine Mr. Potter, or should I say Scorpion Sorcerer?"

"Please, just call me Harry."

The old mage simply smiled, and said, "As you wish. It is obvious from our previous work together that you are building an army. I've been reading the daily Prophet. Although an unquestionable rag as far as good journalism is concerned, one can still extrapolate enough information from the useless dribble to realize that your presence is at the heart of the chaos that is overtaking our world. I must say, we are more than overdue for a change of direction."

"Mr. Ollivander, throughout history revolution has served as the catalyst for change. When an organism ceases to evolve and becomes stagnant, it dies. Our world has reached a crossroad. We either burn our old exterior and renew our self form the ashes of the old like the Phoenix or we die. I'm simply the catalyst for renewal. Hopefully, when we come out of this crucible, the magical races will be united. There is strength in unity. Racial unity is the key to our collective salvation. For too long have the magical races lived on their collective islands and in isolation. We need to build bridges that will stand the test of time. Collective strength will make us stronger and create the tools to face the next millennium."

"Those are very high minded ideals, Mr. Potter. What makes you think that you have what it takes to unite the magical world?"

"I don't know that I have. However, I don't see anyone stepping up to the plate. On one hand we have the ministry, which is so self absorbed in the ideals of power and self-interest that they care only for themselves. Whole armies of sycophants back stabbing each other in the hopes of gaining some small favor from their masters. Meanwhile the ideals of good government are being swept away by rampant corruption. Also, let's not forget Albus Dumbledore, the self-declared leader of the light. The bastard is responsible for so many crimes against humanity that the lines between the greater good and evil have become blurred. Finally, we have Voldemort, the self declared Dark Lord who is so far gone from humanity that calling him a self serving psychopathic lunatic is far too generous. Before him lies the path to absolute destruction for our world."

Pausing to gather his thoughts, he looked directly into Ollivander's eyes and said, "Faced with these choices, what else is there?"

"Believe me Mr. Potter I have been looking for an alternative for a long time. I've known for some time that change was coming. Having seer blood in my line you see, I've foreseen certain events, which will come to pass. We have reached a turning point in our history. I know that a terrible war is about to be unleashed. Seers are able to access the time plane through visions. Visions are the medium by which magical beings can gather bits of information leading to possible outcomes. No magical person can ever gleam the full picture of future events. So many variables come to pass within a span of time, that nearly any permutations of variables can create a final outcome that is impossible to foretell."

"Well we have our parts to play, and fate has hers. Now, onto other topics, I've gathered a set of stones that have extremely unique metallurgical properties that can easily blend with Naquadah and Naquadria. The magics I am learning and inventing will require me to generate large magical densities, which would not be possible for a wand to channel. The Naquadria wands are powerful magical amplifiers and focus. The problem is the energy flux and density that can be channelled with a wand is fixed due to their size. "

Harry saw that he had captivated Ollivander and continued with his explanation, "You see, the size of the Naquadria core limits the magical density that can be harnessed. I think of it as a pipe. The larger the pipe the more flow it can handle and energy losses or pressure drop is much less. That is why I whish to build a staff. The staff will be able to handle much larger magical density and flux. The spells I'll be working with require magical flux that can't be handled with a wand. I would like you to come with and train with us. I would also like your help in researching the properties of the stone and work together in the creation of a staff. There may be a way to bypass the Moon phase of the ritual, but I'll need your help to modify the runes. Do you accept?"

Ollivander nearly had an orgasmic smile on his face and replied, "Mr. Potter, I have a feeling that this staff will be my greatest challenge and creation to date. Your scientific knowledge in material science will be invaluable in this endeavor. Let's not waste a minute. There are discoveries to be made."

Harry laughed at the man's enthusiastic fervor and replied, "As you wish. We have some friends who will come with us. They will be working on other projects. You won't need anything. Rooms, food, entertainment, books and materials will all be provided."

With that, Harry double-checked that he had everything he would need during flux time. When he was done, he went back towards the command centre and found Neville and Luna waiting for him.

Harry yelled, "Good morning you two, you made it. Do you have everything you need?"

"Morning Harry. Yeah, I think we have everything. Luna made a list last night and we just went over it."

Luna with an angelic smile on her face looked at Harry and said, " Sorry we're late Harold, but Neville was in the middle of giving me an orgasm and we had to wait until I climaxed."

Harry's eyebrows nearly fell off his face at that comment. He looked around and found most people stifling their laughs. Poor Neville was beet red in the face. You had to hand it to Luna; the girl was brutal in her honesty. Harry looked Neville in the eye and smirking said, "Good show mate."

Tonks and Remus burst out laughing, with the rest of them following.

Harry told his group to gather around and said, "As you well know, this will be intense four months. Hopefully we'll make some breakthroughs." Harry turned around to pick up his notebook when he heard the twins talking.

Harry looked up and the twins were nearly on top of him, Harry smirked and said, "Morning guys. You two ready for some serious experimenting?"

The twins looked at each other with an evil smirk on their faces and Fred said, "No worries mate. We got it covered." With that they each pulled out a box the size of a matchbox and enlarged it to the size of a multi compartment trunk.

George added, "When we're done, No one will want to get caught in the swamps."

Harry simply nodded and told the gang to follow him. They all made their way to the trunk manor by the great lake. Once they were all settled, Harry went up to the crystal room and activated Odin's Eye. Once again, Harry would make more discoveries about magic, which would have long-term consequences for the war.

**Early Morning in Northern Ireland on **_**Aran Island**_

A small pop sounded in the frigid air near the base of _Errigal _Mountain in Northern Ireland but no one was there to hear it. Wearing midnight blue robes stood the ancient figure of Albus Dumbledore. Looking very tired and disheveled, he slowly made his way towards a small rock path heading North East. Albus feeling tired, slowly took his time marching along the path, he was in no rush. He needed time to properly think about his next move. He had looked at a mirror early in the morning and had been shocked at how gaunt he looked.

Of course the past week had much to do with the current situation he found himself in. The last few days especially had seen a complete meltdown of over five decades of work. When he thought of that blasted Scorpion, he seethed in rage. Of course, this wasn't the first time that the Wizarding world had turned on him. Bloody back stabbing sheep the lot of them. He looked up and was now approaching a large granite rock. He waved his wand in a star shaped pattern. The rock face suddenly shimmered and was now filled with ancient runes. He tapped three runes in a pattern set as an equilateral triangle. The runes were _Thurisaz, Amsuz, and Raido_.

Suddenly the air shimmered across his location on the other side of the path, and a large hidden section of a greenish marble door appeared. He again tapped a set of runes in a circular arrangement and the marble door swung open. Albus then tapped three more runes. He tapped _Laguz , Sowulo and Pertho. _Albus then took a silver knife with a dragon head for handle and quickly slashed across his palm. He then rubbed his palm across the _Isa_ rune. A teal colored dome briefly shimmered overhead and then disappeared. Albus looked around to make sure no one was looking and hurried across the path and entered the marble door. Once he crossed the door's threshold, the granite rock, the doors and the path vanished under a powerful disillusion charm and activated a set of blood wards.

Albus needed to reach his refuge. No one knew of this home deep inside the mountain, which he had hollowed himself over fifty years ago. He had spared no expense here. After all, nothing was too good for his beloved _**Maya**_. Just thinking of his beloved brought a restless sigh from him. He slowly made his way to his keep. He had to stop halfway to take a breather. Blast this useless old body, he thought. The elixir kept his body alive and his magic strong. The elixir could only trim ten years from the age at which one started drinking it. Normal age time was the datum from which a wizard or witch would de- age. He had completed his first stone four years ago. Shortly after the Potter brat has so graciously pulled the stone from the mirror of Erised. Contrary to what he had told Potter, Flamel had been the one to implement the final protection on his Philosopher's stone. He had tried getting the stone from Flamel many times, but he had only succeeded in Potter's first year.

Of course he had found out in due course what the protection was. It was amazing to him that a man who was over six hundred years old could be so damn naïve. Listening charms had always been easy magic for him. Albus stood up and resumed his walk down the path. Green lit torches came alive as he came near them. He liked that color. It gave the whole place an eerie feeling. Albus smirked to himself. He almost wished that someone could find his mountain home. He had interlaced so much dark magic in the protection of his keep, that anyone whishing to lay siege to his home was going to experience a world of hurt.

Finally he reached a large oak door laced with large forged iron bands. He took out his wand and removed his wards. One of the wards caused instant castration. When he was done, he swung the door open and stepped into a parlor leading to the living room. Turning his gaze towards the middle of the room, he saw the large polished red oak trunk lying vertically four feet above ground. On top of the trunk, were four carved post, leaning at forty-five degree angle and set at ninety degrees to each other. Each post had gold and silver runes carved in them, representing earth, water, fire and air. The ends of the post were connected to a gold ring, holding a platinum bowl. The bowl itself had a pure crystal ball with a strange bright bluish light emanating from it.

Dumbledore approached the bowl and _Accio'ed_ one of the plush leather chairs close to the fireplace. He plopped himself in the chair and rubbed his temples. He turned his head towards the large kitchen, and looking at the wine rack lying by the north pantry, decided that he needed a drink or ten. He _Accioed_ a red Merlot from his rather large collection, and grabbed himself one hand made German crystal glass. He looked at the wine label and uncorked the bottle. He brought the bottle near the fire to get a better look at the deep red liquid and poured himself a generous amount.

He put the glass to his lips and greedily drank of the blood red liquid. He felt the liquid burn down to his stomach. He poured himself a second glass and noticed that it went down even smoother. He finally felt his body relaxing. Albus looked at the eerie bluish light of his wife's soul and slowly felt his eyes become heavy. He allowed his mind to recall the events of the last few months. He found his mind unable to concentrate. He kept seeing his wife's Horcrux and the events that had put her in that state.

Unknown to Albus, his body slowly fell into a deep sleep. As he fell into a deep sleep, his hand began loosening its grip on the wine glass. The glass fell from his hand and smashed on the granite tiles spraying red wine against the oak pedestal.

Deep in sleep, Albus subconscious lifted the fog from memories he had buried deep in his psyche a long time ago.

_**Flashback April 29, 1945 Berlin Germany**_

Albus was sitting with his wife of only two years, Maya Toitovna Bogdanovich. They had found each other four years ago at Lacedaemeon magical University in Greece. The University was situated in southern Peloponnesus, which was originally founded after the Dorian invasions over three thousand years ago. He had completed his apprenticeship there, and shortly after graduation, due to his brilliance in the art of transfiguration had been offered an associate teaching position under master Tyrrimas.

Over the following two decades, he had written many papers on fractal transmutation. He concentrated on determining the magical activation energy threshold and the amount of magical energy needed to effect what muggles call Plank's constant. The research helped to describe how to make a transfigured object permanent. Shortly after his doctorate dissertation, he had packed his bags and left the school for some much needed travelling. Over the next thirty years he travelled far and wide to all parts of the world to study magic from whoever was willing to partake in knowledge transfer. He travelled to Africa where he collected many books on the dark arts, especially in Egypt. He also travelled to the Americas, Asia and finally took a break in Russia. His final destination had been St-Petersburg. By then he had pretty much blown his family inheritance. Deciding that he needed some funds, he had found himself an assistant's professorship at the Odessa magical school. He soon learned that he would be an assistant to the new Potions mistress Maya Toitovna Bogdanovich.

Soon after they had met, they had quickly found themselves to be kindred spirits. Albus found someone who was his intellectual and amazingly his magical equal. They had taken the time to know each other. They took it slow, as both of them felt no pressures to rush into anything. Over the next two years, they slowly fell in love with each other. They were married on their third year. Albus came to realize that he had found his soul mate. Some would call it the love of his life. They established a home together and were very happy. On his seventh year in Odessa, he received an invitation from his old University to become the next Transfiguration master. Using his contacts and influence, he was able to get Maya a job as the next potions mistress. The next year they moved back to Lacedaemeon magical University in Greece.

However, the invading forces of Atilla Octavious Grindelwald would soon shatter his quiet life. In 1939, Grindelwald's forces had smashed through the weak Greek magical government. The only place, which had stopped Grindelwald's advancing forces, had been at the University. Albus and his wife had organized a resistance movement. They had summoned the most powerful native Greek wizards, witches and other magical beings to fight at their sides. His study into the arcane dark magic had come in handy.

The fight had been brutal. When Grindelwald's forces had retreated, over 1300 Wizards, Witches, Werewolves, Vampires, Centaurs, and Veelas had perished. Their win at Lacedaemeon had forced Grindelwald to consolidate his forces. Within a six-month period, he had pulled all of his forces back into Germany. Their win in Greece had been short lived. Over the next four years the Latin based countries of Italy, France, Spain along with Britannia would feel the hammer of his forces. Albus seeing the invasion of his beloved motherland had enlisted in the dark defense league. After many arguments, his wife had joined him. Over the next four years they would cross wands many times with Grindelwald's forces. Due to their intelligence and magical power, both he and his wife had quickly risen into the ranks of the dark defense league and local Aurors. They had eventually been given the rank of Hit Wizard First Class.

Shortly after their promotions, they had gone back to England and established a base of operations from Hogsmeade. Throughout this time, he and Maya had always fought together. They were widely acknowledged as the best-hit wizard team in Europe.

They had led teams on many raids on the main continent, but it seemed that no matter what they did, they had been losing ground bit by bit to Grindelwald's forces. The tide finally turned when the muggles launched operation Overlord. Operation Overlord was the biggest muggle sea and air invasion of all times. On June 6, 1944 three million muggles invaded the Normandy beaches of Omaha, Utah and Juno. Unknown to the muggles, Wizards and Witches from the free world had gathered to form a strike team that would piggyback with the main muggle invasion force. It was felt that such a large muggle strike force would create such chaos, that it would help hide their magical assault. The other benefit was that it would destabilize Hitler and by proxy his ties with Grindelwald's forces. It was well known, that these two were allies, and that Grindelwald would occupy his forces to help prop up his muggle counter part.

To the surprise of the Europeans magical ministries and their representative, the North American, Indian, and Australian contingent had many Native Indians and Aborigines among the hit wizard ranks. They normally never involved themselves with what they called the white man conflicts. The tribes included the Australian _Djabugandji, Binigura, and Iningai_. The North American natives included the six tribes Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscaroga, which made up the Iroquois nation. The Indian tribes were made up of the ancient Gandharvas, Yakshas, and Kinnaras. These ancient peoples brought with them arcane magic not known or lost to the European nations. These included dream magic, elemental, earth based battle magic, transmutation and magical beast control.

They were asked why they had changed their minds in helping them eliminate the dark wizard, and they replied that if they did not kill the _Átahsaia_, or cannibal demon, then eventually he would come to them on their sacred lands. Better to kill him now than later, where it might be too late. Regardless of why, the Europeans were very happy to have them on board.

Over the next nine months, he and his wife had established themselves as the most powerful European magical users. The native peoples were not included in that assessment. Albus had made the conscious decision to immerse himself into the dark arts. He had collected many prized books and scrolls on the subject during his long travels, but never took the time to really study them. Three years ago, he had immersed himself into the dark arts, much to the displeasure of his wife. After several years of fighting, even she could not deny their power in battle magic. Their successes had not gone unnoticed by the British Ministry of magic, specifically, the minister of magic who at the time was Markus Alexander Hastings.

The Hastings were an ancient Scottish magical family from the lowlands. They were said to be descendent of the ancient Celts. They were all aristocratic purebloods, who were full of their own self-importance Albus thought. Hastings had tried to pass himself off as a brilliant tactician. It became clear early on, that the man was a complete moron and a novice in the art of war. From 1941-1943, Albus and Maya Dumbledore had made fools of him and his administration. Albus had heard many rumors over the last three years that Hastings wanted to take him down a few pegs, but Albus had always brushed the man off. That error in judgment would eventually cost him dearly.

The day before the muggle invasion, the head of the British Auror division, Horatio Antares McPhee came by and told him that for greater efficiency, he and his wife were going to be on separate teams. Albus argued vehemently against that strategy. He and his wife had always been together. They complemented each other and watched each other's back. To be separated now on the eve of their greatest battle was madness. Albus' hate for the ministry began on that day. As much as he loathed the idea of being separated from his wife, he had little power to countermand the order. He made sure to review important spells with Maria and double-checked their war packs and strategy. Under great suspicion, Albus asked to review the personal files of Maya's hit team. He was not able to find anyone suspicious. They made sure that their battle pouch was filled with potions and runic stones, and spare wands. Maria tried to reassure him that everything was going to be O.K, but he still couldn't shake the feeling of dread in his gut.

Albus and his wife were both given teams and directed to take the ancient Gaul city of Lugdunum (Lyon, France). The city was an ancient Druid conclave and the capital city of the Gaul's. That region of France was said to contain ancient Celtic magical manuscript. Most peoples believed that the Druids knowledge was only passed on from word of mouth. This was not entirely true. Before their death, Druids would inscribe their knowledge using runes. The runes would be stamped on very thin sheets of copper. The stamped sheet would then be brushed with tree sap. After some curing, the sheets were covered by a thin sheet of amber to keep them from oxidizing. Grindelwald with most magical scholars knew this and had many of his researcher scour the country site for ancient Druid dolmens. If there were scrolls to be found, that's where they would be buried. No small feat, as the dolmens were protected by ancient magic. Many of his researchers were lost trying to break into the tombs.

The muggle invasion came, and all-magical team piggybacked with them. They quickly made their way to Lyon via mass portkey. Soon after their landing, they came under intense spell fire. Albus surveyed the situation and realized that Grindelwald's forces were only slightly diminished. Albus saw werewolves, Goblins, Centaurs, and a lot of dark wizards and witches. He soon found himself bombarded by spells and quickly sought shelter. Albus now realized that they had been ambushed. Either there was a spy, or their own ministry had set them up. Albus didn't think that it was a spy. Their units were made up of small cells, which were continuously being checked via Veritaserum. The thought that he had been set up by his own ministry blinded him with rage.

If he wanted to win this, He had to fight for keeps. He released his anger in the form of bloodlust and started killing without mercy. He released the tight grip he held on his core, and fed his magic into the dark arts. He felt a sense of euphoria like he never had before. The feeling was orgasmic. He split his team three ways. He took charge of the centre assault and told his two flanks to retreat, and make their way behind the enemy formation. Once they were in position, he told them to wait for large fireball to light up the sky. Once they saw the ball they were to attack their flanks with everything they had. No one was to be spared. His troops also giddy at the prospect of battle quickly obeyed. The resulting fight lasted almost four hours. Towards the end, he had lost nearly ninety percent of his forces, but they were victorious.

Albus let two senior Aurors take care of the cleanup details, and scavenge hunt and immediately headed towards the other side of town to go help his wife. Upon, reaching _La Pierre Du Cheval_ Albus saw a battered Auror make his way down the street, and ran to intercept him. The man had deep gashes on his face, and was bleeding profusely from his right side. He looked to be in shock.

Albus said, "Where can I find your platoon leader?"

The man looked at him, as if he didn't recognize him.

Albus had no time for the man and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently to get his attention, and repeated, "Have you seen my wife, Maya Dumbledore!"

The mans stuttered and replied, "Sooo,ssoo,sssooo Cccooolllllddd."

Albus gripped the man even tighter and said, "What do you mean so cold. Make sense man!"

The man finally seemed to come out of his shock and looked at Dumbledore in the eyes, Albus had always been a patient man, but the fear for his wife, the loss of so many of his comrades in his recent battles had left him short tempered. He finally took his wand and cast _Legilimens._ Albus dove through the man's memories like a lead weight dropped in water. He found that his wife and the remnants of her troops were held up at the old Romanesque Benedictine monastery, the ancient abbey church of St Martin.

He quickly ran towards the church and was nearly felled by an AK. He dove to the ground and came to rest behind a fountain. He quickly disillusioned himself and crawled besides an old flowerbed ledge. He slowly made his way towards the bike rack. Where the ledge broke, he peeked around the corner and couldn't see anything. He cast a heat signature charm on his glasses and peeked again. He saw a group of what he assumed were Grindelwald's forces. He dug deep in his magical core and let his fear for his wife control his emotions, he then let loose _Bombarda-Magnus_ . The spell was at short range and crashed into the unsuspecting horde within seconds. Part of the street and the wall where they were hiding was completely obliterated. Albus took another look, but no one was standing. He could hear moans of pain from those who would soon see the afterlife. His eyes held a glint and found himself not caring about their fates.

Albus carried on towards the church. The closer he reached the church, the colder he felt. He stopped for a moment to gather his bearings and saw dark shapes floating in the distance. He realized that he was looking at Dementors. That would certainly explain the man's paranoia. He decided to head east to avoid the blasted beast. He came upon a side entrance and decided to proceed inside. He was surprised that he had very little resistance. Either Maya has dealt with the forces convincingly or the enemy had made a strategic retreat. For some reason, he felt like an iceberg had made its home in the pit of his stomach. He marched slowly. He took his time to analyze the room. There were many ancient glass and stone artifacts lying about. He came across a cabinet that was filled with copper sheets. His eyes widened at the treasure it held before his eyes. The scholar in him wanted to take the precious artifact, but he was on a much more important mission. He passed more cabinets, and saw a door on the south side of the room. He made his way to the door and cast a slew of dark wards. Finding no magical signatures, he crossed its threshold and found a man with Maya's team markings sealing a door.

He made his way to the man and said, "Who are you and what are you doing?"

The surprised Auror whirled around and was about to curse him. Albus had anticipated the move and disarmed the man. The man seemed surprised to see him. Albus could tell that the man recognized who he was, and was nervous for some reason. Albus narrowed his eyes and said, "I'll ask again, who are you and why were you sealing the door?"

"I'm Auror third class Angus McPhee. My whole squad was just ambushed in this blasted church by Dementors. I managed to get away. There were too many of them. I barely managed to escape as it is. It was a free for all in there."

Albus frowned, "A free for all? Am I to understand, that more of your comrades are in there fighting for their lives, and you abandoned them? COWARD!"

Albus took his wand and was about to unseal the door when the man grabbed his wand arm and whirled him around. The man sneered at him and replied, "Look Dumbledore, there's nothing you can do. If you unseal that door, you'll doom us both. I won't let you kill me, you hear me."

Albus felt that something was very wrong. He looked directly into the Auror's Hazel eyes and using his Legilimency abilities he immediately assaulted the Auror memories. Within seconds, he was digging through his memories. He quickly found the battle scene. By that time, McPhee had noticed the intrusion and tried to cast him out.

Albus felt the Auror resist. His Occlumency skills were good, but Albus' mental powers were far greater. He was able to crush his pathetic attempt at evicting him. He soon found other memory links tied to the main battle scene. He decided to unravel these first. He found to his dismay that the man was a special agent to the minister himself. He had been working under cover for over eight years. His sole purpose was to remove any potential opposition to the minister. He found out that the Minister himself with the help of the DMLE director had planned to have him and his wife terminated on this ambush. The DMLE director, who was a close childhood friend of the Minister, had been the one leaking information to Grindelwald's forces. Albus finally found the reason for this betrayal was because the pathetic excuse for minister felt that he and his wife were after his job.

A deep fear suddenly gripped him. He forced his mind back to the battle scene. What he found caused him to cry in anger. He clearly saw Maya and her squad fighting a frontal assault. Albus could see that the air was thick with spell fire. People from both sides were yelling, screaming and falling to all kinds of curses. Every member of her squad was so concentrated on the fight, that no one noticed McPhee leave his position and slowly make his way behind Maya. Albus saw McPhee attack his wife from behind. He had petrified her, and cast _Incendio _on her robes. He saw his Maya scream, as she was being burned alive.

He had then sent a _Reducto_ curse to the South side of the Abby, and blasted the door. Dementors had been waiting in ambush and began attacking the remaining Aurors. This had happened in the last ten minutes. He quickly pulled out of McPhee's head and kicked him in the balls. McPhee released his grip and he quickly cast _Avada Kedavra_. The men fell where he stood, with his eyes starring at the ceiling. In a fit of rage he kicked the man and sent a _Reducto _at point blank range to his head. The man's cranium exploded in a mist of blood and gray matter. A piece of the man's cerebellum stuck to his cheek. Albus was beyond caring. He ran to the door and pulverized it with another _Reducto-Magnus._ The door and part of the wall was pulverized into powder. He quickly brought forth all of the happy memories of Maya he could muster and cast _Expecto-Patronum. _An extremely bright and powerful image of an eagle spread out from his wand and attacked the Dementors.

He had cleared himself a path and went to find his wife. He felt his heart was going to burst out of his chest he was so worried. He vaulted across a set of benches and just as he cleared it, he could see that he was too late. His wife's soul had been pulled from her body, but was still hovering above her face. The Dementor was about to pull down his hood, to kiss the soul. If he chased the Dementor away he would lose her soul. He did the only thing he could, he reached deep into his knowledge and remembered a passage on _Horcruxes_ from the book of _Azuli._ He had to act fast. He needed a receptacle to hold the soul. He looked at one of the shelves along the wall and recognized a fifteen-century Venetian crystal ball. He banished the crystal ball by Maya's head, and having committed murder in cold blood, had already fulfilled the first criteria for making a _Horcrux_. He immediately cast several warding spells to hold the soul from escaping the crystal ball. He began chanting in an ancient dialect using phonetics. _**Tewet-Ka-Kheperu-Maat-Heru-Khuti-Mââ-Xerou**_

At first nothing happened, but slowly the bluish orb, which was Mayas' soul, began moving towards the crystal ball. The Dementor began screeching, as if it was in pain, or upset. Albus didn't care. He had to save his wife's soul. He kept on chanting until the soul seeped into the pure crystal ball. Once her Soul was encapsulated, he cast his eagle patronus at the Dementor and managed to get it away from his wife's body. He ran to her and picked up his wife's Horcrux and grabbed his dead wife's burned body and took out one of his secret portkey, and took them to Dumbledore manor.

Once he reached the manor, he quickly put his wife's body in a stasis field and put his most powerful wards on her Horcrux. Looking at his wife's body and soul, a part of his own soul had died today. As her husband, he had failed to protect her. He had been careless and under estimated lesser people than him and it had cost him everything that meant anything to him. His beautiful Maya was dead, and her soul trapped. Tears streaked down his cheeks. They were going to start a family after the war. They had both agreed to live in England and had accepted teaching positions offered by Armando Dippet. He looked down at his wand and a deep rage filled him. His face had turned to stone that day. He swore on Morgana's dark soul that those responsible were going to pay.

Albus cursed the fates and knew that he would stop at nothing to bring her back. He realized that he could never be happy again until he and Maya were back together. If he failed, then he would make sure to release both of their souls. That day, he realized that he needed to be the one in charge. He needed to be the chess master. He had a lot of research to do, and the best place to do this was at Hogwarts with all of her resources. He needed to control the ministry and the Wizengamot. To do this he had to gain glory. Through glory would come influence and power. He would be the one dictating the terms. He needed to fashion himself a persona or alter ego, from which he would hide his true persona.

Suddenly Albus woke up from his slumber, and looked up to see the pulsing blue light from his wife's Horcrux, and remembered his dream. He had once again relieved the events of his past. His leaned back in his chair and began formulating a plan to salvage some of his prestige. The only way he was going to regain some of his power base, was to take over the ministry and put his Order of the Phoenix members into key positions.

He needed to let go of his headmaster position at Hogwarts, and take over as minister of magic. From there, he would use the vast resources of the ministry to finish his research. He was going to destroy the Wizengamot. They were going to pay for their betrayal. He would then use the might of the ministry to reign in the Potter brat and destroy this Scorpion Sorcerer. He had already killed a Dark Lord and felt he could do it again. Man makes his own fate, he thought. In his mind, there was no such thing as a supreme entity that dictated mans fate.

_The great Albus Dumbledore had fallen into the same trap that many other great men before him had. In their power, they thought that they were untouchable. The great failure in their education is that they were not thought to comprehend matters concerning human destiny. Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny. Destiny is simply Fate's mistress. In the end like Voldemort, Dumbledore would learn that one cannot cheat Fate._

**END Flashback**

**Morning of November 16 Southern England**

Xiana was looking at her watch, for the fifth time since she had arrived at McAllister Abbey. She had her full robes on and was under a disillusioned charm. It was still early in the morning, and she knew from her files that Matthew McAllister always went on his morning walk on his way to his stables, to meet with his mistress for his quickie fix. Little did he know that his mistress was stunned and would be unable to meet his needs till the end of time. The thought of the obese bastard touching any woman made her skin crawl. Tubby was responsible for using his influence with Gringotts, that allowed Dumbledore to bury the Potter family will. He was also responsible for laundering galleons from family vaults that had been exterminated during Voldemort's first war into Dumbledore's vault. He had also been instrumental in pushing discriminatory werewolf and vampire laws in the ministry with Dumbledore's blessing. The ugly bastard was a closet first class bigot.

She was brought from her thoughts when she heard someone whistling up the path. She was hiding behind one of the large red oak trees darting these lands. She watched the fat bastard waddling down the path in his ridiculous purples robes. She sneered and took out her wand. She activated her watch and made a full sweep of her surroundings. She looked at the dimensional map, which showed that the man was alone. Not taking any chances she cast a noticed me not, silencing and befuddlement perimeter ward. The last thing she needed was someone catching her in the act.

She waited until he passed her position and silently cast _Petrificus Totallus. _The tub of lard went down like a wounded Erumpent. The look on the man's face was quite amusing. She sauntered over to the idiot and removed her disillusionment charm. She flicked her wand and unfroze the man from his neck up.

The man spluttered, "Who are you to do this to me? Do you have any idea who I am? Release me at once and I may give you leniency. I'm a member of the Wizengamot and a High Lord. Now release me!"

Xiana sneered and slowly lowered her hood and then flicked her wand. The man screamed as the skin on his wand hand started hissing and smoking. The epidermis started bubbling and the skin started falling off. The tissue began to char and carbonate. The stuffed pig screamed his head off.

The man began uttering obscenities at her. He went on and on about her being a whore's spawn who should be a sex slave for Azkaban.

"Now, is that any way to talk to a lady." She purred at him.

She flicked her wand again and a small purple sphere of plasma shot from her wand and hit the man's right eye. The plasma ball penetrated the lens of the eye and instantly boiled off the jelly like fluid in the vitreous cavity and the instantaneous expansion of the gas ruptured the iris, lens, and cornea causing a spectacular blow out of the eyeball. The pig screamed until his voice was raw.

He finally stopped screaming and managed to pull off enough control to look at her closely with his good eye. He spluttered and managed to squeak, "I remember you. You were at the Christmas ball two years ago with your twin. You're a Zabini. Why are you doing this?"

When he realized she said nothing, he whimpered and said, "Please, I don't know what you want, but I can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. I can give you power. Please tell me what you want."

"Actually you're wrong."

The fat bastard frowned at her and replied, "Wrong about what?"

"My last name. Two year ago I was a Zabini, now my last name is Potter." With all the training in flux time, it had been over two years she thought.

She watched with pleasure as the idiot started sweating profusely. She knew him and his ilks had been ready to prosecute Harry under Umbridge and Fudge's orders. "I see you remember Harry Potter. Well why shouldn't you? After all you tried to fuck him over did you not? Well you know what they say? What goes around comes around."

She felt his eye looking at her form and noticed his face changing into a sneer. He gasped and managed to speak, "I see that the half blood bastard didn't waste anytime knocking you up. Tell me, how long did it take for you father to disown you? Such a waste, how is it that the daughter of such a proud pureblood family lowers herself to shack up with such a pathetic wizard as Potter. He is nothing but a whelp of no importance."

With a look of disgust on her face she continued, "You know nothing of my family you disgusting maggot. You call my husband pathetic. He is a thousand times the wizard you could ever hope to become. You're not worthy of speaking his name. As for what I want, I want your head on a silver platter. My husband and his associates know all about your past dealings and your cozy relationships with Dumbledore. We know all about your dealings with Dumbledore and Lucius Malfoy."

She watched with satisfaction when his face showed complete surprise, he started to sweat and plead for his life again. She pointed her wand at his neck. The man started screaming, and taking a deep breath she whispered, "_Aquilo-Bipennifer." _She watched as his head was decapitated from his shoulder. She waited until he had finished his last spasms. She levitated his head unto his body and threw a portkey at him. She waited until the portkey activated and pointed her wand above the cottage and whispered "_Mosmordre_." She looked up as the green skull and snake made its appearance and smirked. She then _Accioed_ her raptor broom from behind the oak tree and made sure she was disillusioned and took off. As she was flying close to the skull she thought about the snake face bastard and whispered, "Welcome to the revolution Dumbledore. Let's see how you respond to Riddles attack."

Meanwhile in the small magical district in the town of Hythe, Blaise was sitting in a little pub called the Hope Inn on Stade St. He was looking at his prey, who was on his sixth Hobgoblin Ale. At least the fool knew his Ales if nothing else. Hobgoblin was one of the more respectable Wychwood ales. Of course, the file on High Lord Gurney Eric Mason had much to say about the man's impressive appetite for all things alcoholic.

The Mason's were an old pureblood family dating back to the dark ages. Their family had invented some wards and healing spells. They had helped stave off a variant of the black plague during the Dark Age, which had decimated some of the eastern magical towns. The family had done very little else in the last three hundred years. Like many pureblood families who did not marry muggle born wizards and witches, their magical talents had slowly eroded due to inbreeding. According to the file, he and Dumbledore went way back, even before the war with Grindelwald. He had used his family connection to help elect Dumbledore as supreme Mugwump. Even thought Mason was a mediocre wizard, Dumbledore had kept him in power, and in exchange, Mason had endorsed every proposal the so-called Light Lord had proposed. Anyone who dealt with Wizengamot politics knew that Mason was a Dumbledore lackey.

He was sitting at a table near the fireplace adjacent to the west wall. He was wearing a glamour charm and was pretending to read his paper, which had been spelled to be transparent. He looked at his watch and wondered if Theo had finished his assignment. Looking around, Blaise was happy to see that the pub didn't have many people up and about. This was a typical morning where the local patrons were just waking up and getting ready to go to work. They were too busy wolfing down breakfast and coffee to pay attention to their surroundings. He looked up and found Mason walking up to the bar to pay his tab. Show time he thought.

Blaise had already paid his bill a while back, and simply walked out of the pub using the back door alley. There were the usual crates and garbage bins that one would expect at the back of any pub or restaurant. He picked a set of barrels stacked on top of each other and used his watch to scan the area. His map showed some muggles on the other side of the magical wall. There were no Witches or Wizards about. He cast a notice me not, sound proof and an alarm perimeter ward. He tapped his head and disillusioned himself. He didn't have to wait long before the stupid idiot came out of the back door staggering. The man seemed completely oblivious to his surroundings.

Blaise stepped out from behind the barrels and moved in front of the man. Mason bumped into him and stumbled back and fell to the ground. He looked up at Blaise and yelled," Watch where you're going!"

Gurney managed to sit up and looking at the man in front of him suddenly felt a cold chill run down his spine. The man was wearing scaly black-green robes and his hood was completely obscuring his face. He was tall and his voice was cold and impersonal. He was brought out of his thoughts when the man spoke.

"I know exactly where I'm going and what I'm doing. Do you?"

"I'll have you know I'm a High Lord of the Wizengamot, with close ties to the supreme Mugwump. I suggest you run along, before you land yourself a one way ticket to Azkaban fool."

Again, Gurney felt his bones chill when the man whispered, "In case you haven't heard, that would be ex Mugwump."

"Not for long! You'll see. He'll be back in power before you know it. The Potter brat won't know what hit him. I'll make sure of that."

Blaise lowered his hood and saw the man gasp. The lump suddenly shot his wand out of his holster and tried to curse him. Blaise saw the fool coming a mile away and simply flicked his wand. The idiot's wand was sent flying into the harbor. The man looked like he was about to shit himself.

Blaise pointed his wand and hissed "That's where you're wrong. _Conflo-Corculum"_

The last image that Gurney Eric Mason would see in his life was the ice-cold blue eyes and a small black scorpion tattooed on the left man's cheek. He now realized that he was looking at one of the Scorpion Sorcerer's soldier. He saw a deep blue light strike him in the chest and felt extreme pain for a few seconds and blood suddenly spurted from his mouth and he knew no more. The curse had caused the man's heart to explode. Death was assured within seconds.

Blaise looked at the dead High Lord and whispered, "Welcome to the revolution." He took his wand and pointed towards the chimney and cast _Mosmordre._ Blaise smirked as he saw the green skull and snake light up the sky. Part of the plan, was to let Voldemort take all of the blame for these deaths. His job finished, he tapped his wand to his ring and portkeyed back to the lair.

That morning the dark mark had been spotted all over England. The scorpion army was on the move. Slowly they were infiltrating the highest levels of power.

_**Early Morning Riddle Manor**_

The Scorpion Army weren't the only ones busy that morning. Voldemort was sitting on his throne thinking about his next move. He was refining his plans to invade Azkaban. His first tasks were do teal with his treacherous Wizengamot minions. He had ordered Bellatrix, Mulciber, Valeria and Veturius to bring the traitors to him and retrieve a very special death eater from St-Mungo's. They had just come back with the little worms. He had no qualms exterminating them. They had been found out and were of no use to him. However, he was going to make sure that his death eaters learned the price for turning traitor. He looked up at his parchments and made one last modification to the rune sequence. His knowledge of Horcruxes and been invaluable for this research.

He walked from his throne room to the staging area. When he arrived, he found the Lords bound and tied to their chairs. With a sneer of disgust on his face he looked at each one of them, and was pleased to see a look of fear on their faces. He so enjoyed drinking in the smell of fear this early in the morning. He looked towards where his servants were kneeling and found Barty Jr. standing beside Bella with a vacant stare on his face. That vacant look would change if his plan worked. First, he needed to stoke the egos of his death eaters. It was time for the carrot, he thought.

In a soft hissing voice, "Bella, you and your group have done very well today. I am most pleased with your efforts. There are some muggles and scrolls for you and your group to play with. Be careful with the scrolls, the dark magic is quite potent. You will also each receive 500 galleons."

He smirked when he saw the insane glint in Bella's eyes. The others were pleased to just be thrown a bone. It was a fine morning indeed. He yelled, "Wormtail, get your useless carcass over here now!"

He heard the pathetic rat come sniveling from the kitchens. With a leer on his face he hissed, "Are the preparation complete Wormtail? I will be most displeased if they are not."

"Mmmy… mmmyy looorrdd, the Dementors are ready. The table and runes have been drawn to your exact specification, my Lord. "

Fixing his scarlet eyes on Wormtail he hissed, "Pray that they are Wormtail. I do not tolerate failure."

"Bring in the Dementors."

Wormtail and Mulciber scurried off to the anti chamber. They both picked up a nullifying crystal necklace and reached the Dementors. They pointed at them to follow. They came back with the dark demons gliding behind them. Everyone in the room began feeling the effects of the demon except for the Dark Lord.

Voldemort glided towards the traitors and said, "Did you really think that you could fool Lord Voldemort? You belong to me you miserable worms! Lords indeed."

One them seemed to find his voice and stuttered, "My Lord, we never wanted to betray you. A powerful wizard put us all under the _Imperius_. Please my Lord shows mercy. Let us make it up to you."

Voldemort whipped out his wand and hissed, "_Crucio_." The pathetic lump fell on his back and started trashing on the floor while screaming himself raw. After nearly two minutes under the curse the oaf shit himself.

Irvine was always weak, he thought. With a disgusted look on his face he lifted the curse. He looked around making sure that all of his death eaters were looking and yelled, "Let this be a lesson to all of you. You're all responsible for your actions. If you succeed in your tasks, you will be rewarded. If you fail in your task, you will be punished. If you turn traitor, well you're about to see what happens to traitors."

He flicked his wand and the Lords were petrified except for their heads. Everyone in the room who didn't have a necklace felt the effect of the powerful Dementors. He hissed in the ancient Celtic language and the Dementors glided towards their prey and lowered their hoods. With glee in his eyes he watched his death eaters shaking at the sight about to unfold. The ancient demons grabbed their prey and with practice born of eons, lowered their mouths to within a foot of their prey and with exquisite screams they began pulling souls out. The blue orbs floated above their victims and one by one they were absorbed by the ancient demons.

Lord Voldemort relished in the fear of his death eaters. Not only had he paid the price for his next ritual, but had sent a powerful message to his remaining troops. He flicked his want and unfroze the Lords. He could see their vacant expression. The only evidence that they were alive was the rhythmic sound of their breathing. Without constant bodily care, they would perish within a few weeks. With a sneer on his face, he flicked his wand, and suddenly the kissed Lords caught fire. In their non-existent state, they didn't even cry out as the blue fire consumed their bodies. Once they were reduced to ash, he _Scourgify_ed their remains.

As he was ready to make his way to the ritual chambers, one of his death eaters came in through the foyer and headed straight for him. He noticed that it was Amicus. He narrowed his eyes and hissed, "What do you want?"

"My Lord, we have news that the dark mark was sighted all over Southern England early this morning. I was wondering why I was not summoned for the attack. Have I displeased you my Lord?"

What in the name of Morgana's hairy cunt was going on he thought. "What do you mean the dark mark was seen all over Southern England? I haven't authorized any attacks. Are you sure about this?"

"Yes my Lord, I just came back from the town of Hythe, and saw the dark mark floating over a pub."

"Do you know who was killed?"

"No my Lord, I thought I would check with you first to see why I was not part of the battle?"

Voldemort looked at his eager follower and found he had no desire to punish him. The man simply wanted to know why he was not serving his Lord. He narrowed his eyes and said, "Your devotion is to be admired Amicus. I must say this news greatly disturbs me. I can only conclude that someone is framing us for something." He began pacing on the marble floor deep in thought. Someone clearly wanted him to take the blame for something, but what? He needed more information.

He turned around and said, "I want three teams to go investigate where my mark was spotted, and find out everything you can. Amicus you take the west, Bella you take the south and Mulciber you take Eastern England. Now, all you leave me except for you Wormtail. Take Barty to the ritual room."

Voldemort had realized a long time ago that his ability to carry out necromancy and soul magic on other being had been severely diminished when he had created his own Horcruxes. Had he known the price at the time he might have searched harder for another option to immortality. He despised magical weakness of any kind. Necromancy was a powerful magic and he had unknowingly diminished his own ability to carry out. Hence his need for the pathetic rat, how he hated depending on anyone.

Voldemort went to his private chambers to pick up his tome, his Mayan blade and the Onyx chalice. He came back to the ritual room and told Wormtail to lay Barty on the table. He noticed the Dementor floating in the North left corner of the room. Using his Legillimency powers he connected with the Dementor and sent the demon images of how the ritual was going to take place. The only acknowledgement that he got was a slight nod. Not wasting anymore time. He disrobed and began carving intricate runes on his body. He carved _Ansuz _above his heart for divine power, and then he carved the _Nauthiz_ rune in the palm of his right hand to call upon destiny. The third rune was _Pertho _carved on his forehead to call forth the birth of new. He asked Wormtail to power up the runes with his raw magic. He then took his wand in his right hand and cast _Caeruleum-Cremare_ on the Onyx goblet. A dark blue fire sprung around and on the goblet. He then took his ritual knife and sliced his left hand. He let his blood flow into the goblet. He added _Chanca- Piedra_, _Mandrake root powder and crushed fairy wings_ to goblet.

Having finished his initial preparations he looked at the Dementor and sent him an image to come to the table. He told the Dementor to bend its head close to Bart's face. He took his servant's head and poured some of the goblet's content into his mouth. He ignored the gentle blue fire licking his hand. He held the goblet in his left hand and took his wand and began chanting in ancient Yucatan Mayan. He hissed, "_**Ch'uhul- Ch'am- Ya-k'a- U-b'a-Ke-le-B'alam-Ma –Matan**__"._ Wormtail followed his master's instructions and with him repeated the chant seven times. After every chant, Wormtail would pour some of the goblets contents into Bart's mouth. A deep purple and black aura surrounded the Dementor and Barty. The aura began pulsing and began shifting toward a blood red color and soon shifted to a cerulean color. The Dementor extended its arms and opened what passed for a mouth. A small dark blue orb emerged from its mouth and slowly drifted towards Bart's mouth. The blue sphere hovered above his face for a few seconds and then was instantly absorbed into his body.

Voldemort seeing the soul disappear into Bart's body ceased his chanting and waited. He hadn't realized how much magical energy would be expanded in this ritual. His damaged soul had been severely taxed. Were he not powerful, the ritual could have cost him his life. Voldemort looked up and saw Bart's body thrash as if it were under the Cruciatus curse. After a minute or so, he stopped trashing and took a big gulp of air as if it was the first time he had ever breathed.

**Bart's POV**

The soul that once went by the name of Barty Crouch felt as if it was swimming in an endless void. It was somewhat aware of its surroundings. It somehow felt permanently tethered to some sort of energy shaft. At least that's what the other blue spheres projected, or rather felt. No one could speak in this state. It was more like having a permanent Legillimens link to all the other spheres. He constantly felt weak. It felt as if he was being bled slowly. It remembered being ripped from the shell known as Barty. God how painful it had been. He never wanted to experience that ever again. Now that it thought about it, it should have tried getting itself killed. Anything would have been better than this fathomless existence. It was about to contact one of the other spheres when it suddenly felt a pull, and knew no more.

He took a sudden deep breath and opened his eyes. The last thing he remembered was the face of the Dementor as it was about to kiss him. He was disoriented and sickly. He felt as if he had wakened from a deep nightmare. He turned his head and noticed a semi bald fat man and recognized him as Wormtail. Still disoriented he looked in the far corner of the room and noticed a Dementor hovering there not doing anything. He sneered and spat at the demon. God he hated the bloody bastard creature. He brought his hand to his face and examined it. He then looked at his body and realized that he could feel once again. Finally realization dawned on him that he was back in his body. With a look of pure joy on his face he quickly sat on the table and brought his head up and noticed his Lord smiling at him.

"My Lord, I don't know how you managed this feat, but you are truly the greatest wizard alive. I am yours to command as always my Lord." Barty jumped from the table and knelt before his Lord.

Smiling from his success and having his most trusted inner circle member back, he said, "Rise Barty, stand at my side once again. Unlike the others, you have never failed me. Lord Voldemort always rewards his faithful followers."

They both walked out of the ritual chamber to see the surviving members of his inner circle reviewing plans. He was bringing Barty up to speed on past events since he had been kissed. The first one to notice them was Bella. Voldemort was pleased to see her eyes as large as dinner plates and her lower jaw wide open. He could tell by her confusion that she was wondering how Barty was animate once again.

It didn't take long for her restraint to break down and said, "My Lord, how is it possible that he walks around as if he was himself again?"

He looked at her with narrowed eyes and said, "Let's just say that I've discovered some lost magic and leave it at that." The tone in his voice made it plain for her to drop her line of questioning.

"As you wish, my Lord."

She saw her Lord looking at Bart with a smile when he hissed, "Now that Barty is back with us, we will finally succeed in our recruiting efforts. I want all of you to bring all the data you have on the Vampires, Werewolves, Giants, Trolls, Banshee's, Veela. I want numbers, location, current alliances, enemies, and magical protection. Bart will review our current plans and we will meet again in four days. That should give Bart enough time to comment on our plans and recuperate."

He was about to dismiss them when Alecto came running slightly out of breath with a tablet in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

"What have you got for me Alecto?"

"My Lord, it would seem that some High Lords faithful to Dumbledore have been executed. It would seem someone is framing us for the murders. I went to three different sites, and the answer is the same, no one remembers anything. I checked for Obliviation, poisons and _Imperius_ but they were all clean."

Voldemort sneered and hissed, "There is only one explanation for this, fool. Who else would be foolish enough to challenge me except this Scorpion wizard? The little bug is really starting to get on my nerves. Well if we're going to take the rap for this, we might as well give them more reasons to fear us. I want to plan a raid on Diagon Alley very soon. I want you all to identify some worthy targets. It's time to have some fun."

Voldemort looked at the paper Alecto was holding and noticed it wasn't the Daily Prophet or that rag the Quibbler. It could only be that other paper again. If he ever found this Tenebrae Noctiluca (Dark Side of The Moon), he would take a month off his plans to personally torture the little bastards. That blasted paper was causing him more problems to his recruiting plans than he cared to admit. He had already sent two parties to try to find where the rag was operating. They'd come back empty handed, to his great displeasure. He'd let them know how very displeased he had been at their constant failures.

**The Discovery**

Article by:_**Tenebrae Noctiluca**_

Faithful Readers, if you hadn't heard by now, our incompetent ministry and buffoon of a minister have once again failed the magical constituents of Britannia. Minister Mud, eerrr Fudge I mean, had the brilliant idea of filling the ministry coffers, by expanding Azkaban and housing all of the most dangerous dark Wizards and Witches from all of Europe and North Africa. Why would he do this you ask? Well minister useless didn't want to raise the average household income tax in order to make up any revenue shortfall that will no doubt occur due to the upcoming war with He-Who-Should-Have-Stayed-Dead.

Who really benefits from this deal you may wonder? Well I'm sure some of you have guessed it? The sniveling, over privileged, prejudiced, inbred purebloods who have been raping the British Wizarding world for the last eight hundred years of course. By Merlin's sagging right nut, we wouldn't want to deprive them of their debauchery money would we? Well putting away the sheer injustice of magical Britannia, doesn't Fudge realize that he has just given a sure means to the half-blood Dark Lord to increase his army a hundredfold if Azkaban is broken into?

My fellow Wizards and Witches please do not delude yourself, the ministry's security measures are bound to be cheap and inadequate. Azkaban will be broken into and the worst dredge that our society is capable of creating will be out on our street assaulting your sons and daughters. The minister is playing right into the hands of the self proclaimed Dark Lord, the half-blood Tom Marvolo Riddle.

For those of you who are new to our circulation, you heard right, Voldemort's real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, his mother was the squib Merope Gaunt and his father was a muggle. Now, how hypocritical can you get? The half blood argument for his assault on our world is that he wishes to purge it of half bloods, muggleborns, and squibs saying that they are deluding the strength of our world? The boy apparently grew up abused at St-Mary's orphanage in the early 40's. Instead of using his powers to improve our world, the psychopathic maniac with a severe mommy and daddy issue has decided to proclaim himself Lord of the purebloods and wage war on the rest of us. How pathetic can you get?

For those of you who fear his name and his death eaters you only give him power that he doesn't deserve. Instead of running in fear, why don't you all learn some spells and start fighting back? Muggleborns and half bloods outnumber the purebloods fifty to one, and by sheer numbers we can overpower them. Think about that the next time you see death eaters attacking your home.

Since we're into the topics of Dark Lords, some of you may have heard by now the conviction of Albus Percival Wulfic Brian Dumbledore for his ghastly deeds against the boy-who-lived. How the mighty have fallen. Dumbledore was convicted of breach of family inheritance, thievery and endangerment to name a few of his misdeeds. The self-proclaimed Light Lord is not so light after all. It's come to our attention that while Dumbledore was getting his just rewards handed down to him, the family manor was attacked and raised to the ground by the Scorpion Sorcerer himself. These events have done much to renew this person's faith that no one can escape fate's justice. Dumbledore if you are reading this, welcome to the revolution.

Now as to Azkaban...etc

Voldemort looked at the paper sheeting in rage. This was not the first time the rag had revealed information that should have never seen the light of day. Not able to keep his temper in check and seeing that some of his subordinates were also reading the paper he needed to put on a little show and vent off some frustration at the same time. With that thought in mind, he snarled and crumpled the paper and yelled, "Lies! How dare they vilify me, the greatest Dark Lord in centuries? They will all die a painful death when I catch them." He threw the paper on the ground and hissed, "_Incendio_."

He turned around and snarled, "Get back to planning. Soon they will all see why it's not a good idea to vilify us. He left to go back to his chamber for some much needed reflection. The proverbial cat was out of the bag on many things. Because of that blasted paper, the moron's would beef up security even more just to prove a point. Perhaps a large break out was not ideal. Maybe a coordinated series of fast lightning strikes on the other Wizarding prisons would be much better. He was realistic enough to know that he could not get every one of them. He just needed to succeed on the ones that had the biggest payout. He would wait to attack Azkaban. He needed to lull magical Britain into a false sense of complacency.

_**Ministry of Magic London England**_

Early that morning, as with most government offices across the world in muggle and wizard kind, functionaries were coming in with indifferent stone like faces holding some sort of stimulant in hand. Like well-oiled machines they slowly made their way to their offices. One particular functionary by the name of Martha McCauley made her way to her desk that was adjacent to the minister himself. She had been chosen over eight months ago to be the top ministry administrator. After over thirty-five years of experience as a professional administrative office manager, she had reached the pinnacle of her field.

She made her way to her desk and started riffling through the list of mail that the minister would have to see and take action. It was her job to categorize the mail in terms of importance. She picked up the daily newspaper and quickly riffled through them. She picked up the daily prophet and scanned it to make sure that they hadn't botched the minister's scripted article. Everything seemed adequate. She put it aside and noticed the other news print laying beside the internal documents ledger. She picked it up and started to read when she heard a plethora of swearing, curses and such coming form her boss's office.

The door swung open with a bang that echoed throughout the hallway. She quickly turned around to see an enraged Cornelius Oswald Fudge foaming at the mouth. He looked at her and shaking the paper in his hand bellowed, "Incompetent am I? How dare this pathetic rag call me a buffoon? I want to see Amelia Bones and Veturius Longshanks in my office in thirty minutes." Let's see if this insignificant rag can withstand his full power. He will have the Aurors and Unspeakable trace this bloody damnation of a paper. When he's done with the owner, he'll wish he'd never heard the name Cornelius Fudge. He looked at the paper in his hand and threw it at his secretary and marched back to his office and slammed the door.

She looked back at her boss' door and simply shook her head. She sat at her desk and wrote the summons for both department heads. At times like this, she wondered if a career in herbology would have been better.

_**Scorpion Lair November 20 Early Morning **_

Xiana was sitting in the lair at the main conference table typing on the computer. She picked up her mug and took a sip of her chamomile tea. She loved chamomile and it helped settle her stomach. The twins must have been playing a game of Quidditch, she thought. Her stomach always felt that way when Harry was away. Sometimes she thought that the twins knew their father wasn't home, and weren't too happy about it. She had arrived early, because she simply couldn't sleep. She decided to floo to the Lair and work on some files instead. She looked around the lair and noticed that it was very active early this morning.

She knew that Harry and gang would be back early this morning and they were all here to get their marching orders. She went back to her computer and finished inserting the final bit of information they had on their new appointees to the Wizengamot Upper House. They now controlled over seventy percent of the upper house and close to sixty percent of the lower house. When the time came, they would have enough power to dissolve the government. She then proceeded to go over the accounts to make sure there were enough funds allocated to their research and development branch. She would send the accounts to the board for final approval later that afternoon.

Having spoken to the potions master, they were now within weeks of achieving key breakthroughs on several of their initiatives. They needed rare potion ingredients that were quite difficult to obtain. In other words, they weren't cheap. The body restoration potion was one of their most valuable research projects. That one had the potential to replace lost limbs, damaged organs, and even re-grow a brand new nervous system. She felt that due to the war, many of their people would need the potion. The mechanics were simple enough. It would require any of the person's own body part, a hair, bone, or tissue and just like polyjuice dissolve it in the potion and drink it. Voila, restored body.

The idea had come from merging the polyjuice potion, skele-grow, and Voldemort's body restoring ritual. One of Malfoy's ancient dark scrolls had provided a breakthrough. It appears that Hydra's have incredible regenerative properties. Through experimentation they found that Hydra blood and spleen mixed with dragon marrow and infused with mild proteomic silver provided unheard of regenerative capacity. It caused instantaneous mutation of the current DNA and RNA cells in the body back to its earliest embryonic form. The potion was then combined with growth steroid and aging draughts. This caused the regenerated body parts to age to a chronological age somewhere in their mid twenty's. It was analogous to resetting a timer to zero, and then moving the hands to the desired time. She was busy transferring money into different accounts oblivious to all the commotion happening in the lair.

She was tapping away when she noticed that everything had suddenly become quiet. She looked up to see Harry climb out of the trunk. He had his hood on, and she could see his eyes glowing AK green. He was holding a staff. The first thing she did was gasp at the beautiful creation. It was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was about six feet high and two inches in diameter. The bottom was capped with a six inch Rhenium tip. The main shaft was pure Naquadria with magical animals carved on its surface. She could see scorpions, snakes, dragons and other creatures she could only guess.

The eyes of each creature were inlaid with a set of precious gems. Emerald for scorpions, ruby for dragons, and sapphires for snakes. Above every carved creature was a two-inch ring etched with runes inlaid with emeralds. Four feet from the bottom of the main shaft were two eight inch perforated Rhenium sleeve set four inches apart. Like their wands, the Rhenium sleeves were perforated with holes inlaid with black diamonds. The black diamonds provided a path for magical energy to reach the center of the main shaft.

The top of the staff had an eight-tip crown set forty-five degrees apart. Sitting at the base of the crown was a perfectly rounded four-inch light bender stone. Sitting on top of the light bender stone was a six-inch scorpion made of Naquadria. The scorpion's eight legs merged seamlessly with the crown tips. The scorpion's stinger and pincers were made of perfectly shaped emeralds. Looking at the staff one could actually see the air shimmer around it. Harry holding his staff looked absolutely lethal. She was pretty sure that everyone in the room had the same thought.

Standing beside Harry was Octavius Ollivander. The bizarre man seemed extremely giddy for some reason. She saw the twins, Luna, Remus, Tonks and a few other carrying scrolls, parchments, boxes and weird looking plants.

Harry walked towards Xiana and kissed her. He whispered, "I've missed you love." He then turned towards everyone and said, "Hi everyone, it's good to be back. We don't have time right now to go over everything, but next week we'll be holding a full gathering to talk about our discoveries and how to incorporate them in our fighting techniques. I'm putting everyone on notice, two weeks from now we'll be having a full-scale battle exercise. You are all responsible for speeding up your training. I'll be sending all of you with Moody for the next week in flux time. I want everyone to be done with Necron's books. I'll be sending a list of new curses and shields with Akima, Michael, Tiberius and Yadislav. "

He paused to gather his thoughts, and surveyed the crowd who was waiting for his next words. "Since our numbers are growing, in order to fight more efficiently, improve communication, administration and mission execution the council and I have decided to adopt the muggle military structure of ranks and special units. That is why the military exercise is necessary. You will all be assessed on many subjects at various levels and scenarios. We'll be building your physiological profiles to determine what rank you should be. Make no mistake, there will be no favoritism here, the rank structure will be based strictly on you abilities, I'll swear my magic on this. We already have a good start on the uniforms, but we need some ideas on what the ranks and special unit badges should look like. Of course keep in mind that we are Witches and Wizards and should make sure that there is an element of magic involved in any ideas generated. The council is not the only one with good ideas and we would like you to bring forth any ideas you may have. That is all for now. I'll talk to all of you soon enough."

Harry looked at Remus and they both nodded at each other. Harry looked at his closest advisors and said, "Xiana, Remus, Tonks, Moody, Fred, George, Ginny, Bill, Blaise, Theo and Brianna please follow me to the inner chamber. We have much to discuss."

With that Harry made his way to the inner chamber. Once he was in, he went to the corner where he had once hidden those pieces he had found in the snake statues and waived his staff and whispered a spell. A black obsidian box appeared for everyone to see. Harry remembered the basilisk egg, the necklace and a goblet with a badger and the dark aura that so resembled Voldemort. (Chap 12). At the time he was building the Scorpion Lair, Harry had no idea what objects he had found in the statues. These last months of study had finally showed him how Voldemort had cheated death. The bloody bastard had turned towards the evilest of the black arts to torn asunder his very soul. He'd managed this when he was only seventeen. Harry had realized that Tom's diary was in fact a Horcrux that he has destroyed back in his second year. The scrolls that he had read had warned of dangers of splitting one's soul. Not only did it make the Wizard unstable, but it also removed the ability of the wizard to cast soul magic. One needed a complete soul to cast soul magic also known as necromancy.

_**Flash Back Training Trunk**_

Harry was sitting in his favorite chair by the fire and had crossed out another book that had yielded zero knowledge on Horcruxes. He looked down towards the pile and was about to pick another book when Remus came barging in waving a positively ancient scroll and screaming that he had found the answer. The scroll had been from Dumbledore's safe. The scrolls weren't the only useful information coming from the safe. The diary had explained how to create and use the Philosopher's Stone. The diary had also revealed much about Dumbledore's motives and what had driven the man to become dark and manipulative. The man wanted to recreate new bodies for his dead wife and himself and reconnect his wife's soul held in a Horcrux with her new body. Harry smirked knowing that Dumbledore only had half the answers. What Dumbledore lacked was a means of recreating a stable body. The elixir of life was one of the main ingredients only.

Harry turned back to the scroll and began reading. The scroll was about Varanasi, the ancient, the place of atonement for man and god, the cleanser of spirits... the path to the other side. Varanasi is older than history, older than legend, older even than myth. The power existed even before the first altars were built by sons of Manu, it existed even before Lord Shiva himself came to atone for his sin of _Brahmahatya _epochs ago.

Very few places in this world still function as doorways to the higher and nether plains. Only these spots still have residues of the magi of those ancient ages; the ages where gods and demons walked the Earth. Varanasi was a veritable mother lode for all those interested and steeped into the philosophic and the esoteric. The temple of _**Varnasavinamita**_ had been the gathering place of demons and Jinns now long gone from our plane of existence. In those ancient days, the demons had built temples all over the world. They had also left their knowledge inscribed in murals and on the temple pillars. In the very center of the temple were a pit and a veil. The pit was described as a portal to the nether world. Harry had recognized it as another veil much like the one at the department of mysteries. The other temples must have such veils also, he had surmised.

On one of the murals, contained writing in runes long ago forgotten. These runes had been discovered and deciphered over three thousand years ago by an Egyptian wizard priest of the order of Osiris. He had gone on a quest on orders from his order to scour the earth for ancient magic. He eventually traveled to what is known today as the valley of Balaghat near Kenha national park in India. He had stumbled on the ancient temple of _**Varnasavinamita**_ and had barely made it out alive.

The temple was hidden by a plethora of dark charms and curses. The writings spoke of a Horcrux as a vessel. Into this vessel, a wizard who wished to escape the human fact of mortality could place a bit of his or her soul into an object. The soul bit is torn from the whole by the act of murder. After committing a murder, a wizard could and, evidently, usually did live with a torn soul. The soul could actually mend by virtue of repentance, forgiveness or time but must undergo unimaginable pain to atone for the sin.

The wizard who wished to make use of that tear in his soul could invoke an evil, highly secret and very difficult spell that placed the torn bit of soul into a vessel of his choice. This ensured some level of survival, even if the body was killed. The vessel must have powerful stasis charms cast upon it to ensure that the soul piece cannot escape. It is highly advisable to put many curses and enchantments to safeguard the soul piece. If the protection of the Horcrux is somehow defeated, the simple act of destroying the vessel would release the soul piece and destroy it forever. The Horcrux acted as a tether to the plane of the living. It prevented a Wizard or Witch left over soul from passing into the netherworld. Using the spell Avada Kedavra is necessary to help split the wizard's soul. The three runes known as _Raido (spiritual and physical renewal), Nauthiz (to accomplish the impossible) and Sowulo (spiritual protection) are carved on the chest and head. Raido is carved above the heart, Sowulo is carved on the forehead and Nauthiz is carved on the right side of the chest. _

The third step consisted of transferring the soul to the receptacle using the following spell _**Tewet-Ka-Kheperu-Maat-Heru-Khuti-Mââ-Xerou.**_ Upon completing the spell the wizard will be surrounded by a deep burgundy mist, the mist will shrink into a small ball and turn light blue. The small ball, which is the torn soul, will then gravitate towards its new home. The protection enchantments must be initiated immediately. Know that this ritual is excruciatingly painful. Many wizards and witches have lost their sanity using this ritual. As a final warning, know that the price of immortality is not without severe consequences. One cannot alter the balance of the universe without paying the price. I, demon Xoltor Ata Valteri keeper of the seventh gate of Alderan made an oath to never reveal the secrets of the demimonde under threat of complete destruction.

_**End Flash Back**_

"Harry?"

Harry heard Xiana and snapped out of his thoughts. He looked to his left and said, "Sorry, I was just thinking of what's in the box and how they helped Tom come back to the living."

Xiana frowned, "Come again, I don't understand how a box helped Tom come back to life?"

Harry looked at his wife and the group and decided to give them a short version of what they had found in Dumbledore's scrolls on Horcruxes and how to destroy them. He explained what they were, how they were made and how to destroy them. He explained the dire warnings of creating them and their effects on their living bodies. He saw all of them shuddering and explained that Lucius' diary had mentioned that the Dark Lord was truly great as he had managed to create several of them.

Harry looked at them and said, "The problem we have is that we don't know how many more he's created on top of what we already have. If making one Horcrux can make you unstable, then this certainly explains why he's a raving psychopath. I know that I destroyed one in my second year when I destroyed Tom's diary. I'm sure the locket, and the cups are one also. I can feel his aura on them. The basilisk egg I'm not sure about. What we need to find out is how many he made and where the others are located."

Xiana was pondering what Harry said and looked up at him with a frown and replied, "I don't know if this means anything but three days ago we watched Dumbledore in his office as he was putting memories in his Pensieve. He was muttering something about Voldemort and possibly seven Horcruxes. He also mentioned getting a memory from some Slughorn, whom ever he is. Maybe this Slughorn knows about Tom's Horcruxes?"

Remus and Bill looked at each other and Bill said, "I think it might be worthwhile to steal Dumbledore's memories. I know this is going to be difficult, but he may also know where the other Horcruxes are. It sure sounds like he knows what they are. It would seem that our esteemed headmaster might know a lot more than we think about Voldemort?"

Remus looked at them, "I agree with Bill. It will be risky but at this stage we must be absolutely sure that we have destroyed all of Tom's protections before getting rid of the bastard."

Harry thought about what they said, and came to the same conclusion. They needed to know how many Horcruxes there were and where the others were located. One thing for sure, they sure as hell had the upper hand. Unknowingly he had stumbled on possibly three of them that would have been impossible for Dumbledore to get at. Access to the Chamber of Secrets requires parseltongue ability. The fact that they were hidden in bloody statues was also brilliant. It was pure luck that he had found any of them. Harry hated to admit it, but it certainly had required guile and magical talent to achieve what Tom had done.

He looked at them and nodded his head, "I agree with both of you. We have to find this Slughorn and raid Dumbledore's pensieve. I suggest we get a plan going so that we're ready to execute when we come back from our meeting with the Camarilla. I don't know how much longer Dumbledore will stay at Hogwarts. When he leaves, so do all his possessions. In the meantime, let's destroy what we have. I suggest we go to the caves where Sirius stayed during my fourth year. It's far enough from Hogwarts that any magical backlash won't affect the castle. I have a feeling that the stasis spells have a great deal of energy stored in them. Remus and Bill will come with me to destroy these three abominations. Xiana, why don't you and Brianna, Theo and Blaise start planning how we're going to steal Dumbledore's memories? Tonks, Fred and George, see what you can come up with to find this Slughorn character."

"I'll get on it right now." Xiana went back out to gather the others.

Fred, George and Tonks went to the map of Britain on the wall and started planning their strategy. Harry took the box and apparated to the caves with Remus and Bill following shortly after. Harry transfigured a pedestal and put each item on top. He then waved his staff and erected powerful shields. He was astonished at the power of the staff. Bill whistled when he felt the power of the wards and shield being erected. Harry then cast several disillusion wards just outside the caves. He looked at his partners and said, "I suggest we cast our most powerful destructive hex. I'll cast on the cup, Remus go for the locket, Bill you go for the Basilisk."

They all took position and Harry said, "On the count of three. One, two, three!" Harry hissed _Gu-Ul-Para_, both Remus and Bill cast _Lacertosus-Rumpere._ Two deep purple almost black lances of light and one huge very dark green lightning bolt shot out of the staff and swiftly made their way towards it intended targets. The targets absorbed the spells, and instantaneously a cascade reaction occurred. Horcruxes are meant to be able to absorb damage and repair themselves. However, there is a point at which the damage is too great and the Horcrux cannot use the stasis and soul energy to repair itself.

The energy has nowhere else to go but to be released to the outside with devastating effects. A huge wall of white energy erupted and pressed down on the erected wards and shields. Harry was using his aura reading capability to gage the integrity of the wards and shields. What he saw made him react instinctively, he pushed Bill and Remus to the ground and jumped on both of them, with his staff held high he hissed, _Nisi-šen-šen._ A large emerald dome formed above them and absorbed the incoming energy from the collapsed shields and wards. A loud bang was heard and all felt a series of earth tremors. The energy influx was incredible. Harry concentrated on his shield and absorbing the energy and redirecting it to his surroundings. Had he not had his staff, they would have been overwhelmed and suffered life-threatening injuries. The energy flux along with the ground tremors stopped. Harry canceled the spell and stood up. The others followed suit. They all looked inside the cave and saw three greenish vapors hovering over the objects, and with a blood-curling scream they vanished. At that point they could all see pieces of the cave's roof coming down in great chucks. Harry _Accio_ed the destroyed Horcruxes and put them back in his box.

He turned towards Bill and Remus and said, "Well, I think we learned something new. I believe that destroying three Horcruxes at once is a bad Idea. The next ones we find we do them one at a time. I didn't realize the amount of magical energy contained by the soul fragments would be that powerful. We won't make that mistake again. Are you guys all right?"

Bill just shook his head, "Well besides having to change my shorts, I'm all right." Bill turned towards Remus and said, "How about you?"

Remus wiped his brow with his sleeve and replied, "Same here, I think I may need to change my shorts."

They all looked at each other and burst out laughing. They all felt the ground trembling again and Harry said, "We better get out of here, the cave is collapsing and I think the ministry will be here real soon." They all made their way back to the Scorpion Lair.

Harry made his way to the inner chamber and dropped the box in a corner. He wanted to collect all the Horcruxes and put them in there. He had a feeling he was going to need them in his final encounter with Voldemort. Never under estimate the power of psychology in warfare.

Xiana came into the inner chamber and said, "How did it go?"

Harry turned around and smiled, "Mission accomplished. Although from what Bill and Remus told me, they are currently changing their shorts. "

Xiana burst out laughing while shaking her head. "Life is never dull with you around love. I figured it must have been one hell of light show. We felt some very weak tremors over here. Those caves are some fair distance from the lair."

"Well you're right about the light show. Let's just say I'll never under estimate the magical energy contained in a soul fragment. I'll say this much, I'm sure glad I had the staff with me. From here on end it's one Horcrux at a time. "

Xiana just stared at him with her mouth open. She was going to lay into him for taking unnecessary risks, but decided to keep her mouth shut. After all she didn't know either that a soul fragment contained that much magical energy. She just looked at him and squared her shoulders and said, "Well at least you were lucky and no one got hurt. I swear I'll have gray hairs before I reach forty."

Harry approached Xiana thanking his lucky stars that she hadn't ripped a strip off him. She could be real nasty when she wanted to. He grabbed her and tenderly kissed her. He looked into her eyes and said, "You're right. We were lucky today. As for gray hairs, they won't be coming from me. Black hair, gray hair, purple hair I don't care. I love you more and more as each day passes by. "With that he kissed her again looked at her swollen belly and smiled.

Xiana looked at her belly also and smiled. She looked at her watch and said, "You have to prepare for your meeting. Please be careful my love." She hugged him and left to go get Luna and Neville.

Neville and Luna came into the inner chamber and found Harry looking at his call phone. Neville looked at his watch and said, "Time to go Harry."

Harry turned around and looked at his close friends and replied, "I was just programming the portkey. I figured and made one last check to make sure we have everything we need. We'll need this alliance more than I would like to admit. Having the Camarilla, as our allies will set a precedent for every other magical race. All right here we go. Grab on the rope, it's activating in two minutes."

_**November 20, Romania in Negoiu mountains in the Southern Carpathian Region**_

Harry, Neville and Luna landed with a thud directly in Shauna's bedroom. Harry immediately cast a shield and dropped into a kata stand ready to strike. He looked around waiting for an attack but none came. The room was empty. He looked to his left and right and found Neville and Luna in similar stands. One could never be too careful, especially in a Vampire stronghold. Harry took a closer look at the room and liked what he saw. There was ancient tapestry from the Celtic, Macedonian and Roman eras. There was a warm blue magical fire in the large fireplace. The mantel was a large highly polished granite slab that held many gargoyle statues. On the right wall there was a large painting of a wolf pack in a snowy dark forest. Harry turned around facing north and noticed a window with the light illuminating the north wall of the bedroom. There was a huge queen size bed with large oak post. All the furniture looked antique and would sell for a pretty price on the auction markets. He noticed Roman, fourteenth and sixteenth century pieces. Harry could make out several magical creatures engraved on the furniture. All in all Harry felt very comfortable here. There was a comforting dark feel to the place.

Luna looked around until she found the bed. She examined every inch of the room and especially the bed. She really loved the room and had every intention of recreating the same setting in her bedroom. She loved how the light struck the north wall. Of course the wolf painting would have to be replaced with a crumpled horned snorcack. She looked at Neville with her typical dreamy 'the world couldn't possibly faze me' look and said, "I want our bedroom to be exactly like this. I can easily see myself having wild monkey sex and conceive in this setting."

Neville almost choked on his own spit, and Harry was finding the gargoyles particularly interesting. Harry cleared his throat and said, "Alright guys, let's get this show on the road." With that Harry used his staff and cast an olfactory disguise and a disillusionment spell on all of them. They could all feel the ice cube flowing down their spine feeling. Harry finally cast a sound proof charm on their feet and took his watch and rotated a full circle to get an idea of the layout of the castle. They all looked at the map that formed in front of them and how to navigate the castle.

They could see where the Vampires were congregating in the main hall. They left Shauna's bedroom and silently made their way to the reception hall. Along the way they passed hallways filled with ancient weaponry. They passed the hall where life size statues of Alexander the Great and his generals all dressed in their battle armor. There were actual wizarding portraits of his army in full battle. There was a large tome sitting on a pedestal. The tome appeared to be a full biography and description of his military campaigns and battle maneuvers. Harry couldn't imagine what muggles would pay for this supremely rare collection of one of the greatest military genii in human history. Harry felt a reverence for this man and his accomplishments.

Harry sent a silent blessing to the man who had died so very long ago. They made their way to the fourth floor of the castle and passed by another hallway where Harry stopped once again. This time his was looking at his onetime greatest military icon. Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca. Hannibal revered as one of history's greatest military strategists. He was a master of the battlefield. Harry noticed a book sitting on a pedestal. He approached it and found himself looking at a tome of Hannibal's memoirs. Harry nearly wet himself. He knew right there and then he had to have that book. With a gleam in his eyes that didn't go unnoticed by Neville and Luna, they slowly made their way towards the meeting hall.

Along the way they found some Vampire guards and had to stop and divert their attention with some powerful Confundus charm. Harry had every intention of showing up from a position of strength as equals. What better way to do this then to sneak in what is highly regarded as an impregnable fortress? Suddenly Luna stopped them and asked, "How do you plan to surprise them, and how to we stop them from attacking us?"

"I want to get close enough to the meeting hall so that I can get a mental picture of the place, then I will conjure some scorpions and apparate all of us in the meeting hall. Once there I'll silently cast some protective shields. This should protect us and get their attention."

"Just make sure that your shield can keep the _Tellurian Aslope_ from getting to us. If they get you, they'll find a way to your sphincter and make you shit yourself."

Neville, recognizing how nervous Luna was and that this was her way of relieving stress played along and said, "Well that would ruin our day wouldn't' it? I don't think the Methuselah would appreciate us soiling ourselves in front of the princes. That might send the wrong message."

"Yah, I don't think shitting ourselves is the best way to start negotiations. I'll make sure our shields keep out the _Tellurian Aslope._" Harry replied.

They finally reached the end of the hallway and Harry peeked out to get a good look at the gathering and where they should make their entrance. Harry then conjured his two fifteen-foot scorpions and told Neville and Luna to grab a hold of him. He put one hand on one of the scorpions and touched his staff to the other and apparated to the main hall.

_**One Hour Prior to Meeting in the Main Hallway**_

Nicademus was busy putting the finishing touch ups on the alliance documents. He needed to get this right. Like all important treaties, it was a balance of give and take. He wanted to make the document fair and concise. He knew that the Princes had their own agenda, but the very existence of the Camarilla was at stake. They had to unite under one banner or not at all. Already two thirds of the Camarilla was represented. Shauna was running interference for him. Methuselah Vardana and Ignatius would be arriving soon. Today was the day that history would be made. If he was wrong he they would be destroyed. He hoped that the Scorpion Sorcerer would make it on time. Nicademus looked at the finished treaty and melted some blue wax and affixed the seal of the Camarilla on it. He made duplicates for all the Princes, Elders and Methuselah's.

He looked into his ledger to make sure he had properly recorded the ancient prophecy. He was about call one of the Neonates to prepare refreshments when he heard the voice of his daughter. He looked up to find a contingent following her. He put away his book and went to meet the delegation. He immediately recognized Methuselah Caligula, Vego and Zenobia even though she had her hood on. They weren't as old as him but close. He was very pleased to see that Zenobia had come. She was of the _Inconnu_, which made her neutral from all warring parties. She lived in the wastelands under the ancient vampire city Varniya. The closest human equivalent title would be that of most high priestess. For her to leave the wastelands, and come to the gathering then events to come must be dire indeed. Behind them were the seven elders. Following from the rear were the seven princes. All of the power of the Camarilla was concentrated in these individuals.

The first one to approach him was Vego. "Nicademus my old friend, you still look as sprite as in the old days. The millennia have been kind to you."

"Vego you Cimmerian old hound, you look as young as when you fought Sargon II at the battle of Unartu."

"That was a long time ago my friend." They both crossed their arms and caught each other's wrist and touched foreheads. The ancient greetings dating back to the time of Cain was used to signify peace and friendship.

Vego then turned around and said, "Look who I found on the road to Carpathia, my old friend Caligula. He still looks as young and demented as when he was emperor of Rome."

Nicademus simply smirked and said, "Of course he does, and I've heard that he still indulges in Roman style orgies and bloodletting."

"One has to have a favorite pass time. The centuries can get lonely," answered Caligula.

Nicademus repeated the same greeting as with Vego. He turned around towards Zenobia and bowed with his arms wide open and said, "Of course one cannot forget ancient Zenobia of the _**Inconnu**_, and descendent from the Queen of Sheba. Sired Childe of Amun Anoxia Caliga and keeper of the Antediluvian chronicles, Custodian of the Age of man, Vampire and Wizard history and legends. Welcome to this most important of meetings. Your knowledge of the true history will be most valuable as we enter a difficult time for our kind and the world of man."

Nicademus could hear the gasp from the assembled. They all knew what it meant to have the keeper of the chronicles. Every Vampire knew of the powers of the keepers of history. He then turned towards the Princes and Elders and greeted each one in return. He waited for everyone to be seated and looking around the large table he stood up and began his speech. "Brothers and sisters I welcome you. The reason I have called this meeting is to forge an alliance with the Scorpion Sorcerer. I know that many of you have heard of him and his battles in Britain. You may ask yourself why we should bother with the affairs of Wizards and Witches. I assure you that under normal circumstances we would have carried on as we have always done in regards to mortals and their affairs. However, these are not normal times. I'm sure you have all heard of the Dark Lord Voldemort. He came back from the dead two years ago using forbidden magic and is creating as we speak an alliance with the Sabbat."

Instantly the Princes were on their feet yelling and swearing. Prince Tarsus of the Broujah hissed, "What do you intend to do about this. How come we hear of this threat now? I Tarsus demand an explanation."

Within the blink of an eye, Caligula had Tarsus by the throat with his fangs an inch from his throat. He hissed, "Who do you think you're speaking to, little boy! You forget yourself, I'll drink your blood before you can utter your next words if you don't keep to protocols fool." Caligula threw Tarsus across the room, and turned around to the other Princes, and spat, "This is a formal gathering and the Cain protocols will be adhered to, or you will feel the wrath of the ancients."

Nicademus' eyes were burning lava red, and hissed, "As Methuselah Caligula said, meeting protocols will be adhered to. Now as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, Voldemort has an alliance with our sworn enemies, and I have no doubt that we will be facing his death eaters in combat before long. There is no use denying the fact that Wizards and Witches wield powerful magic that can easily harm our people. Most of you are not old enough to fight them as equals. In order to balance this, we need an equally powerful Wizard to side with us who can offer protection from their magic. In return we will offer the full power of a united Camarilla. Make no mistake - we will need this power to once and for all destroy the Sabbat."

He looked at the assembly and continued, "Shauna has been to Britannia and was rescued by the Scorpion Sorcerer. He's been waging war against the Dark Lord Voldemort with success. The Dark Lord has lost many of his closest advisers. I assure you it is no coincidence that after two thousand five hundred years of absence, the mark of the most feared magical priesthood in known history is once again in ascendancy. Shauna can attest to the power this Sorcerer wields. The signs are all there, we have consulted with our oracles and with the Centaurs, and they agree with us that a global conflict is coming. This cross road has been brewing for millennia. "

He looked around the table and could see the wheels turning in their heads. Here goes the final shock he thought, "You are all aware of my divination powers. What I'm about to say may shock many of you but I believe this to be the undeniable truth. It is my belief that this Scorpion Sorcerer is the long fabled Gehenna Black Raven, The long-prophesied Knight of the Apocalypse."

At that last statement the room exploded into chatter. The elders and Princes kept looking at him as if he had announced that Cain himself was coming back to them. He kept banging the granite ball on the table for to no avail. Finally there was a loud scream for silence. Nicademus and everyone else looked towards Zenobia who had screamed for silence.

"I too have read the prophecy that was foretold by Lilith herself. That particular vision was acquired through powerful blood magic. There is no reason to get excited until we know for sure. The vision foretold that he would bear the mark of the black raven on his left ankle. The blood of two Methuselah along with the seven princes will be mixed and smeared on his left ankle. The mark of the raven with blood red eyes will appear if he is Gehenna. If not, he will still be a powerful ally to have regardless of the outcome."

Nicademus inclined his head towards Zenobia and replied, "As always, wisdom of the ages speaks through you, my lady."

Zenobia looked at Nicademus and a smile crept on her face, she finally said, "Are you courting me Nicademus. My father always warned me about older men."

Nicademus along with the other Methuselah burst out laughing. Finally gaining control he replied, "Ah my dear Zenobia, a tongue as sharp as the reaper's scythe."

He turned towards the other Princes and said, "I suggest we all go over the treaty document as we still have time to make some last minute changes if warranted. I believe you'll find it equitable. I would like to remind you that this is no time to get greedy. Our very survival is at stake. "

With that they reviewed the treaty and Nicademus only had to make a few alterations. He looked at his watch and noticed that they had five minutes before they were to send for the Scorpion Sorcerer aka Harry Potter. The runner came back with a frown on his head and came to him and in a whisper told him that he had not shown up. Nicademus looked at Shauna and gave her a look that said, get your butt over.

Shauna understood all too well the look she was getting. Without being told she pulled out the cell phone to try and reach him, but the second she reached for her phone, there was a sudden apparition to the south side of the main hall. At once the elders and the princes moved to an attack formation. It was Shauna and Nicademus who immediately recognized the intruder.

Nicademus screamed, "Hold your position!"

Everyone froze. No one moved, but everyone got a good look at the sudden apparition. There were three people and two giant menacing scorpions behind them. They were all wearing what appeared to be Basilisk combat robes. The person on the left was a blond Witch, and the one on the right was a Wizard. They both held what appeared to be metallic wands. As interesting as they appeared to be, they were nothing compared to the person in the middle. He was holding a staff that quite frankly even impressed him in its looks. The staff screamed lethal. The man himself was an imposing figure. He was tall and athletic looking. His hood was on, and the only feature that could be seen was the emerald fires burning where his eyes should be. They held the same color as the Avada Kedavra spell. He looked at his fellow Methuselah and he could tell they were impressed. This Wizard screamed power.

The fact that he and his allies had apparated through their blood wards was clearly understood by all the Vampires present. Nicademus was sure that he had done this on purpose. It was clearly a show of strength that said 'Don't fuck with me. I'm here on serious business.' Nicademus cleared his throat and said, "Well if you wanted our attention, I would say you have achieved a resounding success."

Nicademus turned back towards the Camarilla and said, "Please everyone may I present the Scorpion Sorcerer. All of you get back to your seat. Let us get comfortable. We have a long night ahead of us."

With that Shauna went to greet Harry. She approached him in a non-threatening manner and bowed to him with her arms opened and said, "Welcome to the Camarilla. We have heard of your impressive accomplishments. With great respect towards you and your people we would like to talk about a possible alliance between your and my peoples. My father Methuselah Nicademus felt that only a total gathering of the Camarilla would be worthy enough for our meeting."

Harry answered back, "It is with great respect that I too seek an alliance with your peoples. It is my belief that it is high time that the magical peoples of this world unite. There are dark times ahead of us. We will need to pool all of our strengths to meet the challenges ahead of us. Please allow me to introduce two of my closest advisers. Standing to my left is a powerful Wizard of the most noble and ancient house of Longbottom. His given name is Neville. On my right is a powerful Witch of the noble and ancient house Lovegood. Her given name is Luna. My true name, you will only find out if we have a treaty and only through a blood oath to never reveal my true identity. I know that this seems strict and I apologize for it, however there are many lives in the balance and all precautions must be taken."

With that they were led to their seat and refreshments were brought in. Harry silently cast a detection spell on the drinks and food brought to them and found them to be free of poisons and mind-altering substances. It had already been agreed ahead of time that he would determine if it was safe to partake in food and drink. The signal that it was o.k. consisted of him drinking and eating. After refreshments, introductions were made. He was asked how he had managed to apparate directly to the main hall. He had informed them that he had used the muggle cell phone and the GPS function to read the coordinates within the castle. He told them that the first place they apparated to was Shauna's bedroom using a new form of apparition that he had invented that could beat any wards. From there they had silently made their way to the great hall. Harry had praised Nicademus on the incredible collection of ancient warriors and weaponry.

Nicademus was greatly amused at how they had gained access to the castle. It spoke volumes about the man's intelligence and cunning. They were traits that he himself greatly admired. Noticing the reverence the Sorcerer had when describing the ancient warriors, Nicademus asked, "Do you have a particular favorite?"

Harry looked at him and replied, "Well they are all great in their own rights. Alexander is a classic. For myself, I'm partial to Hannibal."

Caligula looked at him and hissed, "What could a mortal such as you know about that bloody Carthaginian?"

Harry looked Caligula directly in the eyes and using his Occlumency powers, called forth his folder on ancient military history and found the folder named Hannibal. Using his eidetic memory he began reciting all of what he knew about this great strategist.

"Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca, (247 BC – ca. 183 BC, short form Hannibal) was a Carthaginian military commander and tactician, later also working in other professions, who is popularly credited as one of the finest commanders in history. He lived during a period of tension in the Mediterranean, when Rome (then the Roman Republic) established its supremacy over other great powers such as Carthage, Macedon, Syracuse, and the Seleucid empire. He's one of the best-known Carthaginian commanders. His most famous achievement was at the outbreak of the Second Punic War, when he marched an army, which included war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy."

Seeing that he had the attention of the entire Camarilla he continued, "During his invasion of Italy, he defeated the Romans in a series of battles, including those at Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae. After the Battle of Cannae, many Roman allies joined Hannibal, who promised them independence and self-governance. According to some historians Hannibal lacked the siege equipment necessary to attack the heavily defended city of Rome, but it was not a lack of siege equipment, that even Livy mentions, but the shortage of supplies and the political agenda. He maintained an army in Italy for more than a decade afterward, never losing a major engagement, but could not force the Romans to accept his terms for peace. A Roman counter-invasion of Africa forced him to return to Carthage, where he was defeated in the Battle of Zama. After the war he spent his time planting olive trees until running for the office of sufet. As such he enacted needed political and financial reforms to enable the payment of the war indemnity imposed by Rome. His reforms were unpopular with members of the upper class, who with the help of the Romans forced him into exile. During his exile, he lived at the Seleucid court, where he acted as military advisor to Antiochus III in his war against Rome. Hannibal fled again, after Antiochus III lost the war with the Romans due to lack of supplies. He accepted their terms, making a stop in Armenia, where he worked as a townsplanner for the new capital. His flight ended in the court of Bithynia where he possibly achieved an outstanding naval victory by means of biological warfare and was afterwards betrayed to the Romans.

Hannibal is universally ranked as one of the greatest military commanders and tacticians in history. Military historian Theodore Ayrault Dodge once famously called Hannibal the _father of strategy_ because his greatest enemy, Rome, came to adopt elements of his military tactics in its own strategic arsenal. This praise has earned him a strong reputation in the modern world and he was regarded as a gifted strategist by men like Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington."

Harry finished his recital and looked back at Caligula who was wearing a smile on his face. Finally with something akin to respect on his face Caligula replied, "Well done Sorcerer. Your knowledge is for the most part complete. His memoirs contain a lot more details of those times however. Being a past Roman emperor, I personally loathed the bastard and the damage he inflicted on Rome. That being said, secretly I admired his guile and military genius. Had he been born Roman at the time, he would have made it to proconsul, maybe even Caesar." With that he inclined his head towards Harry and went back to reviewing the draft document.

It was now late in the evening and they were reviewing the military assistance clause when an elder of the Nosferatu clan by the name of Zuulda Thaal looked at him and spoke in a clipped tone, "We have been going over the military assistance clause and the weaponry that you say you have. I do not mean to show disrespect, but you will forgive me if I'm a little bit skeptical. None of us here have ever heard of such things. I know that your magic is powerful, but to move entire armies in trunks that seems a little farfetched."

Everyone had stopped what they were doing to see what the Sorcerer had to say. Harry looked at them all and said, "I urge you to not take my word for it but to see the evidence with your own eyes."

Harry looked at Neville and said, "Show them."

Neville looked Harry in the eyes and nodded. He got up and pulled out a shiny pocket book size wooden square and put the tip of his wand on the sapphire jewel. The wooden square quickly enlarged into a large trunk. Harry stood up and made his way to the trunk. He went to the large crystal on the front of the lid and put his hand on it. The trunk lid clicked open and he turned around to face the Camarilla and said, "Please follow me."

The Vampires all looked at each other and Nicademus looked at Zuulda Thaal and with a sneer said, "Well do you want your proof or not?"

Nicademus for himself was quite intrigued to see how such magic could possibly work. He followed Harry and his advisers down the deep set of stairs. He looked back and saw that he was being followed by his congregation. They all made their way down the steps and were led to a large set of metallic doors. The very fact that they had gone that deep inside a trunk was impressive to begin with. He couldn't wait to see what was on the other side. He made sure to bring up his full Vampiric abilities to bear. He hadn't lived to be over three thousand years old by being stupid. Who knew what lay on the other side?

Harry made sure that they were all at the entrance to the doors and waved his staff and hissed a password. He had disabled the blood wards in the eventuality that they would need to provide proof of their claims. They stepped through the doors and silently smirked when he heard the Vampires exclaim the impossibility of such magic. Harry gave them a tour of the trunk and explained its features. He told them about the portkey chamber and that there were many such trunks and that they were all connected with their own floo system. He showed them the utilities room and how it worked. He explained that each trunk could be put under a dark Fidelius and be hidden in plain sight, even in an enemy camp. The trunk could act as the perfect Trojan horses.

To say that Nicademus was impressed was an understatement. He couldn't believe that the Scorpion Sorcerer had created such magic. The sheer size of the dimensional space was staggering. He had of course seen multi- compartment trunks before, but nothing that could even come close to emulating this creation. The strategic significance of such a weapon became immediately obvious to him. They could move their large Vampiric armies over entire continents instantaneously. The trunks came fully equipped to house and care for the needs of a whole army. They could hide an entire army in plain view. The sheer strategic value of having your forces ready to crush the rear at a moment's notice was staggering.

Neville and Luna showed them the weapons chamber and explained what the large blue like beach balls were. During their four months in flux time, Neville and Luna had worked on a poison extract from the magical cousin of the castor bean. The castor bean is not a true bean but a seed. The potent toxin Ricin can be extracted from the seed. It causes severe pulmonary edema within hours of exposure to muggles. Neville had found an even more potent toxin that could affect magical beings. He explained where the plant came from and its properties. The magical cousin was called Ricinus Cavitatis. The plant was known to grow at the entrance of caves inhabited by dragons. The feces from dragons provide the magical energy that the plant converts into a supremely potent neurotoxin. The plant and its toxicity had been known for a very long time. However, no one had ever figured how to extract the toxin in large quantities until now. Luna used her wand and wrote the plant's data in the air.

**Scientific classification **

**Kingdom:** Plantae

**Division:** Magnoliophyta

**Class:** Magnoliopsida Magica

**Order:** Malpighiales

**Family:** Euphorbiaceae Magicus

**Subfamily:** Acalyphoideae Echylodendron

**Tribe:** Acalypheae

**Subtribe:** Ricininae

**Genus:** Ricinus

**Species:** R. Cavitatis

Neville and Luna explained how they had extracted the toxin in a liquid form that could be released on the enemy. The balls were heavily pressurized and contained a special type of nozzle made by muggles that would create a dense fog. The toxic fog was much heavier than air and would linger at ground levels for up to three hours. They had also invented an antidote that could be taken in liquid form or capsules. The antidote was good for up to a week. During that period of time any contact with the fog would have no impact. The enemy however would suffer death within hours of inhaling the fog. The fog could kill anything magical and normal. No races were immune to its lethality unless they had the antidote.

Harry could see many of the Vampires looking nervous. He was proud of Neville and Luna, they had come through in spades. There were three trunk manors that had been especially built to function as giant green houses and grow whatever plants they needed for potions and bio weapons. Harry looked at Nicademus and gave him a nod.

Nicademus for his part turned around to face Zuulda Thaal and said, "What say you now Zuulda. Does this satisfy you insecurities? Or do you need any more demonstrations?"

Zuulda bowed his head in shame and replied, "No ancient one. I fear I let my paranoia get the better of me. I will gladly join this Scorpion Sorcerer whoever he is. He has great power."

Nicademus turned towards his group and said, "Now that everyone's curiosity has been satiated. Let us finish our negotiations. They all turned around taking their time to view the inside of the trunk manor. Harry turned towards Luna and said, "Your planning insights have saved our butts. Good show Luna."

"Well I'm not a Ravenclaw for nothing you know."

Harry looked at Neville and they both smiled and shook their heads. He hoped that Luna would never change. Her stoic approach to situations always left him feeling calm. She never got excited no matter how dire the situation was. Well time to finish off this treaty, he thought.

They had been back in the main hall for over an hour and had finally reached an agreement acceptable to all. It had taken Harry explaining why he was fighting and what he hoped to achieve in the end. He had described his plans in large brush strokes. He didn't go into every detail, but certainly enough for them to know that he had a plan after the war that would impose a new order. They were ready to sign the treaty in blood when Nicademus rose up and everyone stopped talking. Harry had an inkling of what was coming. He hoped that they would accept a bargain instead. He looked at Neville and Luna and they too knew what was coming.

Nicademus looked towards Harry Potter and said, "Before we sign the contract. Sorcerer it is a custom of our people to offer a bride as gift payment to seal important treaties. The older the bride the more important the cause. The older they are the more power they have. This is done to both protect you and us from treachery. In order to complete our arrangement, I offer my own daughter Shauna as bride prize to you. "

Here it goes, he thought. Harry looked at Nicademus and then Shauna and said, "Your daughter's beauty is second to none. The bride price is indeed worthy of this treaty. You must understand that were I not married I would accept Shauna as my wife to be. She has all of the qualities that I prize. However, I have sworn on my magic to never betray my wife who owns my soul and heart. I have read your peoples' history and laws, and I ask you if I offer you a gift equal in value to the bride price you have just offered. Would that be acceptable?"

Nicademus narrowed his eyes and replied, "Such things have been done before, but I assure you the gift would have to be of great value to replace my Shauna. Make sure that you do not insult us in your offer of gift."

Harry inclined his head. The warning didn't go unnoticed by Harry. He reached into his robe pocket, and dug out a beautiful mahogany box encrusted with precious stones. He opened it, and pulled out a ruby red stone and heard the Methuselah gasp.

Harry looked up at them and said, "From your reaction I gather some of you know what you are looking at. I'm offering your people as replacement of the bride price this Philosopher's stone. Now the stone is known to make the elixir of life or permanently transmute a small amount of Iron into gold. Being Vampires, you have no need of the elixir of life. Throughout the ages you have accumulated wealth beyond any man's imagination. In my research, I have found another use for the stone that I think you'll find quite useful. "

Harry used his staff and conjured an enormous multi-tiered crystal bowl and filled it with pure water, which cascaded from bowl to bowl like a water fall. He put the stone in the top bowl and conjured a Kama. He cut his palm and allowed his blood to drip directly on the stone. He then took his staff and touched the tip of the stone and allowed raw magical energy to flow into the stone. The effect was instantaneous, the water turned to blood. Not just any blood but wizard blood. Harry heard gasp from the Vampires. A water fall of blood cascaded from bowl to bowl. Harry took his staff and conjured crystal goblets for all of them. There was enough blood in the bowl to satiate hundreds of Vampires. He looked at the Vampires and said, "Drink up, I hear wizard blood is sweet and revitalizing to the taste."

Nicademus had a hard time believing that one stone could reproduce the life giving blood that all Vampires craved. However when it came to this Sorcerer, achieving the impossible didn't seem to faze him. Wizard blood was special. The magic in the blood enhanced a Vampire's strengths. The prominent gifts of each clan derived from Cain were amplified. To a Methuselah, having drunk the blood of other Vampires they ignited all of the gifts of the blood they had ingested in the past. If this stone could reproduce Wizard blood, it was truly the most prized gift that the Camarilla had ever been given. With trepidation, Nicademus looked at Vego who nodded and Caligula who smirked and shrugged his shoulders. The look on his face was one of intrigue. Nicademus slowly approached the crystal bowl and could clearly smell the sweet odor of blood. He picked up his crystal glass and dipped it in the bowl. He brought the glass to his lips and with the entire Camarilla congress looking at him he took a big gulp of his drink.

The effect was instantaneous. To him it was as if he were drinking the nectar of the Gods, he thought. The blood was oh so sweet and warm as if taken from a living host. The instant energy boost was unbelievable. It was similar to having a sugar rush without the nasty side effects. His eyes glowed red and his nails and fangs elongated. He felt a sharp pain in his back and a set of powerful bat like wings sprung up. Nicademus felt as if he could crush and defeat any enemy. Seeing the effect it had on Nicademus every Vampire rushed to the bowl to get a taste. The effects were repeated over and over with varying degree depending on their age. The Nosferatu looked positively bestial and brutish looking. They looked like demons from the underworld. The Toriador looked like Veelas. The Malkavian had a psychotic look to them. The Ventru prince looked like he could give old Salazar Slytherin a run for his money in cunning looks.

Nicademus wanted to know how he had achieved such a feat and asked, "How were you able to do this? How did you discover that you could replicate blood with the Philosophers stone?"

"Making the elixir of life for mortal men requires much more power and magical energy from the stone. Blood, either you are Vampire or mortal sustains life for all. Where blood is concerned, I simply duplicated the blood that was already given. The stone didn't have to recreate it from scratch. It already had a matrix to go by. In this case it simply transmuted the pure water into its new matrix. The elixir of life requires a special spell and depletes the stone's magical properties for over a month. Transmuting blood from water is a much easier process and depletes the stone for a period of two days only. This is blood magic and can easily be recreated by your peoples. "

Nicademus replied, "This is indeed a great gift. From the looks of things, we will never go hungry again. I believe this qualifies as an acceptable trade." He looked around and found the clans agreeing with him. He could tell that Shauna was a little disappointed, but he knew that she understood the significance of this gift. He looked towards Zenobia and nodded at her.

Zenobia turned towards Harry and said, "There is a prophecy dating back to Lilith, wife of Cain. She was a powerful Witch and through blood magic, looked forward through the sands of time and predicted that a bloody war encompassing the world of men and magical peoples would come to be. A conqueror would rise up who would fight for the Vampire race and all magical beings. To us he goes by the name of Gehenna Black Raven. Among our peoples he is also known as the Knight of the Apocalypse. There is no mention that he must be of Vampire blood. It does mention that he would be magical. With your permission, we would like to carry out a test to see if you are this person."

Every Vampire of the Camarilla was looking at him with an apprehensive look in their eyes. Harry looked towards Neville and Luna and they both nodded their heads at him. Harry could have cursed the seven gates of hell. Why did this shit always fucking happen to him he thought. If he ever got a chance to meet Fate he would ram a baseball bat up its ass. He knew he couldn't refuse as it would seriously affect protocols. It was getting late and he just wanted to go home. He inwardly groaned as he was afraid of the outcome. He looked at Methuselah Zenobia and gave her a nod.

She turned towards Nicademus and the Princes, "I hope you have all brought you Childe daggers with you? Nicademus we will need the Bowl of Creation, the sacred bowl from which Cain created the Childe."

Nicademus walked towards a tapestry and waived his hand. The tapestry rolled up to reveal a wall. He pulled out a dagger and cut his right palm. He smeared his blood on the wall and chanted in an ancient language. The wall glowed red and a door appeared. He opened the door and walked inside a secret chamber. He came back with a beautifully carved obsidian bowl. It had a set of runes that Harry did not recognize. Nicademus brought the bowl to the table. Each Methuselah and Prince came to the bowl, cut their right hand and dropped their blood in the bowl. When they had all taken their turn, Zenobia waved her hand and the blood in the bowl began to swirl. As the blood swirled she chanted the ancient tongue of the Antediluvian era. After what seemed an hour to Harry but was only a few minutes, she looked towards Harry and asked him to bear his left ankle and calf.

Harry felt like a complete idiot, but followed her instructions. He took off his boot and walked towards Zenobia. He brought his naked lower left leg on the chair and looked directly into her eyes. She dipped her hand into the blood and smeared his whole ankle and calf with it. At first nothing happened, and Harry felt silly that he had been afraid of partaking in the ritual. He could see some of the Vampires starting to look disappointed but suddenly he felt a searing pain on his lower calf muscle. If felt like he was being branded. He looked towards Neville and Luna who had a look of utter surprise on their faces. The sensation on his left calf suddenly shifted and it felt as if it had been plunged in liquid nitrogen it felt so cold. Before he knew it the sensation was gone. He was afraid to even look, but he managed to pluck enough Gryffindor courage and peeked at his lower calf. His eyes nearly bugged out of his face. There for everyone to see was a black raven with red tears coming out of its eyes. He briefly wondered if Tiamat had known about this. He figured she probably did. As if his life wasn't complicated enough, now he was the recipient of some God damn long lost Vampire legend. Fate is one sick twisted bitch he thought.

He suddenly heard Caligula hiss, "By Lilith sagging tits, I can't believe this fucking legend is true. If I could I'd shit on a Carthaginian head right now."

He heard a smack and found Zenobia glaring at Caligula.

"What?"

"Don't be so crude."

"I'm Roman what do you expect?"

She simply raised her eyebrows at him and turned back towards him and said, "It would appear Sorcerer that you have been chosen as our protector. Should you vanquish your enemies, a new era will ensure. If you fail we're all doomed."

Gee nothing like a little pressure he thought. Harry just looked towards the ceiling and sighed.

Zenobia turned towards the Princes and said, "His protection is all of our responsibility now. Let this news spread to all of our people, especially the Sabbat.

The Princes were now eager to sign the treaty and once they had all given a blood oath, Harry revealed to them who he really was. To say that some were shocked was an understatement. They took the news well, and after completing formalities they finally parted ways. Harry made sure to banish his scorpions before he left. As they about to leave, one of Nicademus' servants came back with a book.

He looked towards Harry and said, "I believe you will find these memoirs to be interesting readings. You will find a lot more tactics that he never got a chance to try on the battle field." With that Nicademus offered him Hannibal's memoirs.

Harry was speechless. He looked towards the ancient Vampire and bowed, "I thank you for this precious gift. I will cherish it above all other in my collection." Harry had Luna and Neville eld on to him and apparated. By the time they came back to the Scorpion Lair it was almost midnight.

What none of them could have guessed at the time were the consequences that the ritual would have.

_**Somewhere in the wasteland, North of the Saharan Desert**_

That night a slight tremor was felt in the deep desert. In a lavishly decorated crypt two large sarcophagi with large granite slab with grooves etched in an intricate runic pattern were suddenly bathed in light coming from magical torches. At the top of the granite slabs was a bowl that was gouged out of the slab. Above each bowl was a crystal ball filled with what looked like blood held in stasis. At the same time the mark appeared on Harry, there was a golden glow surrounding the crystal orbs. Suddenly the spell broke and the orbs fell in the bowl and broke.

The blood flowed from the bowl, and followed the intricate runic pattern. The blood finally reached the center of the slab where it met a small hole and drained off into the sarcophagus. The ground shook again and the granite slabs slid off the coffins. Two majestic looking beings crawled out of their ancient tombs. One was bald, with bat like ears and fangs could be seen peering from his lips. His eyes were pure lava red. His skin was pasty white and anyone looking at him would see an almost magnetic magical aura emanating from the being. He was an imposing figure. He was nearly six feet six inches and quite muscular. He was dressed in blood red robes. His lips and nails if one could call it that were as black as coal. His nails looked like they could cut through stone.

Standing beside him was a beautiful woman. A powerful magical aura also emanated from her. Her skin was mocha in color and her eyes glowed electric blue. She had long dark black hair and also had bat like ears. Her nails were also charcoal black. She was tall and had deep aristocratic features. She was wearing a midnight black dress with a spider web design laced throughout. Her lips were black and fangs could also be seen protruding from her lips.

The male took the lead and followed an old lava tube tunnel. The woman followed him. They didn't so much walk as glide. Magic was crackling from both of them. After nearly thirty minutes of walking, they reached a large circular obsidian door. The male looked at it and waved his hand. The door didn't move, it was literally crushed into powder. At the same time, the sand on the other side of the door was blown off as if a desert storm had blown it off.

Two beings emerged into the deep Saharan desert under a full moon. The man looked at the moon and a deep bestial sound no one had heard in four thousand years roared on the ancient sands. **Cain** and **Lilith** had awakened. The time of the apocalypse was at hand. They had to find Gehenna. But first they needed to feed and find out what time they had awakened to. How much had the world changed during their long slumber.

**Well That's It until the Next Installment. Hoped you enjoyed. Tata for now!**


	19. Chapter 18 Turn of the Tide

Good afternoon, my readers. As you might imagine, the story has been abandoned. The protagonists are simply too strong for the antagonists to face. Harry Potter can very simply roll over both Voldemort and Dumbledore taken together, since he has incredible training that neither of the others could achieve. Also he has a magical core similar in size to Voldemort's and Dumbledore's. Considering that he has a Naquadria wand amplifying his magical strength a hundredfold, the game is not fair. I will quickly wrap up the story. My avenue of interest lies in crossovers, particularly with the worlds of WarCraft and StarCraft. I will be bringing the Scorpion Sorcerer in there. The stories will be posted as separate entities, of course. I realise that the change will not be very welcome to my readers, but I hope that at least some of you may check out my other future works.

Chapter 18: Turn of the Tide

As the morning dawned on the happy family of Potters, Harry stirred and looked around him. His wife Xiana was lying with her leg on top of him and her head nestled on his shoulder. Harry smiled at the beautiful sight.

He then thought of all the misery that surrounded them. The war was starting to drag on and his arch nemesis Voldemort was now about to receive so many new followers. He made a decision to look at his enemy forces very accurately, without any preconceived notions. The Scorpion army had a total of 28 members. Every one of them was worth 3-30 death eaters on the battlefield, depending on their training. He himself could probably account for 50, if not more. The largest consideration he had to keep in mind was whether the enemy would be prepared to meet them head on. Dirty tactics were very common for Death Eaters, but they could still be outsmarted.

He had to check out how many bases Voldemort had left and how assaulting them would feel. Voldemort had suffered a lot of casualties thanks to Harry, but still had to have a large overwhelming number of Death Eaters for Harry to encounter. Harry had to get a very clear picture of how strong Voldemort really is in order to start making assaults on the enemy territory.

He thought of all the possible ways to make this and start digging around for information. He already killed off most of available sources of information - known death eaters and unfortunately was at a loss of other ways to. The only way left to do this was to go back to Voldemort's head. Snape's information was very useful in telling that Voldemort had suffered greatly because of Harry's raids. Harry just didn't know exactly how much.

Since Harry still didn't move on his bed, he slowly started to meditate and go deeper into his consciousness. He saw his core and his mental layout. After 4 minutes of checking everything and reviewing all the techniques he would be using in the coming minutes, he approached the doorway that led to Voldemort's head. The tunnel was still as he remembered. The energy signature was still as he remembered. The other doorway was slightly open and he pushed in just a bit. This wasn't the physical universe, so harry flowed in through the tiny crack in Voldemort's mind.

The amount of pent up rage that was present there did not surprise Harry, but the amount of control that Voldemort had over his mind still baffled Harry. How could Tom become so emotionally driven when he had such an impeccable mind scene. It was dark, for sure, and incredibly defended, but the rampant emotions were very unnatural for an occluded mind. Voldemort had one of the best mind scenes that Harry had ever seen, surpassing every one of his lieutenants except for maybe Xiana.

The memories of Voldemort were defended by a mass of mental defences in the form of dragons. Eh, poor Voldemort. He still could not accept that sometimes he couldn't intimidate someone. Dragons are a great defence when dealing with a brutal intrusion. They do not deal well with small microscopic viruses that cannot be burned and cannot be caught by such lumbering beasts. That is given that the dragons detect the invasion in the first place. Harry released 40 of these celestial drones to infiltrate the primary structure of Voldemort's mind. The drones were filled with his magical energy disguised to appear like Voldemort's. He learned from his experience with Dumbledore. He will not announce his intrusion to Voldemort. The drones went ahead. Harry released 20 of the viral drones and 20 of the information gathering ones. When the time was right, Voldemort wouldn't know what hit him. The viral drones went after the dragons and one by one they snuck up on the flying beasts and went inside of them. Their purpose was to seize control of the dragon's perception of intruders.

While the viral drones were capturing the defences, the informants gathered most of Voldemort's latest memories. That is, 40 last years of his conscious life. The informants were not a completely well finished product though and had several limitations. They transcribed what they saw and could not download any images. But they got the job done well. They snuck out of the mental structure and went back to their creator, fusing into him. After 4 hours in the mind frame, Harry sent back into his own mind and opened his eyes.

The sun was already peeking over the horizon, so the time was closer to 8 in the morning. Xiana left to downstairs and allowed him to do whatever he started. Belatedly he realised that he did not tell her of his plan to invade into Voldemort's mind.

After a quick shower and an even quicker shaving spell, Harry dressed in his lightest wear and came down the stairs. He was greeted by a delegation of people who were discussing his outing with Neville and Luna to the Vampire Lair.

"Honey, I have something to tell you!" was the first exclamation that Harry made that day. Xiana ran into the room and congratulated him with a steamy kiss and a hug.

"Congratulations, Harry! Neville tells me how well you've done! You deserve a treat for that one." Xiana was positively beaming.

"Thanks Honey" Harry said smiling. "I also have a couple of things to tell you. I made some discoveries today. Let's go to the meeting room."

"OK, Harry. Are you sure you're alright though? Discoveries have a bad relationship with you." Xiana answered. She quickly became concerned.

As they moved to the meeting room, the others joined in with them. When everyone was seated, Harry started speaking.

"Today in the morning I was in Voldemort's mind. I made a visit to him and managed to extract all the information he had. The problem is that it was not perfect. It was extracted as pure text. I got the information using new mental information extractors that I and Xiana invented. It will take me 2 days to digest and understand all that information. I now plan to go to meditate on it and start absorbing all the information. I think it will take me only 2 days to absorb it all." Harry was telling this very calmly and making sure that Xiana did not explode on him now. He could be in a lot of trouble from her – he didn't consult her first and didn't give her warning beforehand. He did admit that it was a bit irresponsible of him to do that.

"Harry, you know what I want to say, and you deserve it." Xiana enjoyed Harry's flinch. "But, keeping in mind that you are safely here with us and you tell us that it's been a success, I will hear you out."

"Thanks, Xiana. I plan to head over and read some of Hannibal's memoirs. After that I will go into deep meditation to absorb the information. Neville, I fully trust you to prepare our gift to the Goblins." Harry was ready to finish the whole conversation. "Does anyone want to add anything?"

There was a chorus of negatives from others. They all rose from the chairs and went to have a breakfast.

An hour and a half later, Harry put down Hannibal's book. It was a very difficult task to read this book. The language barrier was there – Harry simply did not speak Italian and when he put words into the computer search engine, he did not get a sensible result half the time. Hannibal's language changed with time and Harry just hoped he could find the original meanings for the words used. The grammar used did not make sense to Harry either. Someone else had to translate the book for him. He had one too many things happening in the near future. That thought ringing in his head felt blasphemous to his mind though.

Harry assigned everyone their tasks and made sure the army would spend the time training. He wished his wife luck with her next target and gave her a big kiss. Afterwards he went to his room and sat down on his side of bed to meditate.

He first went to check on his mental drones. Everything was perfectly ordered still. He was not interested in Voldemort's childhood, so he skipped the 2 probes that dealt with Voldemort's younger life. He simply was not interested so much in understanding Tom as an individual.

He started absorbing all the knowledge that Voldemort had and time froze for him. He fully engaged his mental capacity to understand in flood of text information.

Harry opened his eyes. The first thing he felt was the incredible cramp in his back. His body was protesting the sitting position. His legs felt weak and his arms were cold. Ten seconds afterwards his back gave out and he slumped backwards into his bed. A low groan escaped his throat. Harry let his body a full minute to relax and recuperate and then he slowly got up to his legs and stumbled into the washroom.

Thirty minutes later he got down the stairs to find everyone agitated. Neville saw him first and said:

"Welcome back to the living Harry. How're you feeling?"

"Thanks Neville. Hey everybody. The cramps nearly did me in." Harry tried to be at least a bit humorous. He saw that everybody was still slightly uneasy about something. "Neville, what's going on? What has all of you on edge?

"Harry, Death Eaters just made a small attack on Hogsmeade. A group of Death Eaters apparated in beside the Shrieking Shack and killed 6 third years who were nearby. They also were met eventually by the brilliant defence of the Beaver and Ginger Head. There were signs of a small fight, but no bodies to speak of. Most probably they were taken hostage. Others reported that the third years were in a group of 8. There were supposed to be two more boys with them. And none of them reported back to Hogwarts and we checked all the maps. There is no sign of them." Neville was the calmest person around. "And Xiana is right now with her family in their home."

"Thanks Neville. Dobby"

"Yes, Harry Sir!" Dobby came with a brilliant smile.

"Prepare my breakfast smoothie please, double portion." Dobby immediately popped away. "Alright everyone, I want you to be in full battle gear in twenty five minutes. We're moving out in thirty."

Harry quickly made his way to Dobby's kitchen. There he saw no Winky, but she was with Xiana. He quickly downed one glass of the smoothie and then started sipping on the second as he apparated to the Zabini family manor. There he quickly told his wife of his plan to rescue the children. He knew the locations from Tom's memories.

It turns out that Tom was very much down on his forces. He only had 3 bases left to hold with a total of 29 followers. Harry had been greatly overestimating the number of Voldemort's forces. He realised that he already took out most of Voldemort's forces. The problem with Vampires could be avoided if Harry beat Voldemort before the main forces of the vampires could arrive. They were scheduled to arrive in three days' time.

The only four bases that Tom had left were in the Rosier Mansion, an abandoned muggle bunker to the south of Carlisle, his Riddle Manor in Little Hangleton, and Lestrange House. Harry was sure that the victims would be taken to the Rosier Mansion.

He told Xiana to stay behind; that he will take care of this business swiftly. She really couldn't risk their children. No other child was worth the risk to lose theirs. With that, Harry moved to the Lair to get ready for battle.

Twenty three minutes after he gave the order to gear up, Harry was sitting in the meeting room of the lair drawing a crude layout of the Rosier Mansion. The place was on a hill five miles out of Buxton. The others quickly joined him. He started the explanations as soon as most of them showed up.

"The place where they most likely keep the prisoners is the Rosier Mansion. It's located near a city by the name of Buxton. We will portkey to a forest a mile away from the Mansion. There are supposed to be no wards to keep us away. The place is protected by a force of 15 wizards and 5 werewolves. The werewolves are on a potions regimen to be able to transform anytime. These are some of the most veteran werewolves that Voldemort has, so you should keep watch. I will spearhead the assault myself. I will go there as the visible target and the werewolves will be attacking me. I will take care of them physically, but if you see a good shot, take it. You all are to go invisible. Neville will put the charms on you. Voldemort ordered this attack, because Dumbledore is now out of the picture. He is attack thinking that he can destabilise me and make me go after the hostages alone. Let's not keep him waiting too long. I just intend to keep a couple of surprises. Any questions?" Harry asked to finalise the briefing.

He received only negatives, so he started enchanting a portkey. They all grabbed hold of the portkey and disappeared. They appeared in a forest and almost immediately started walking in the direction of the mansion. Ten minutes later, Harry told everyone to turn invisible and separated from the group.

He went to the gravel road that leads to the mansion. The sun had just set over the horizon behind the cloudy skies. The sky was dark blue with heavy clouds. Harry approached the house in everyone's view.

The house was impressively large and it was situated on a hill with a large viewing area in front of it. Harry could see a stream running through the mansion.

The ancestors of Evan Rosier laid a foundation of the family nest, hoping that not only magic, but also the solid stone walls and iron bound gate can protect against an angry mob of muggle with hunters of the old days. Those who came with pitchforks and torches to deliver purifying fire to the "demonic offsprings."

The estate was a thought out point of defense. If things got bad enough that a siege was enacted, to sit under siege – the lack of dense forest and the height above the ground gave an excellent overview that did not allow the enemy to quietly amass sufficient forces for an assault. The nearby river was a source of water and an auxiliary route of escape. The fact that the mansion of gray stone with jagged pinnacles standing on a flat sloping hill also reminded of the remaining secret passages under the building and extensive caves. Caves, which given the propensity of the new inhabitants, hardly ever were empty with no occupants…

From the Middle Ages, when the place was constructed, a lot has changed. The circular wall that surrounded the estate has been torn down. It seems that its ruins now cover the castle moat, which was definitely there before. Judging from the almost gone, but still noticeable hollow, the gates have been taken away. The remaining hole was now a kind of decorative arch. The building has been subject to reconstructions several times, which have almost fully negated its combat qualities, but the foundation still remains the same – massive and oppressive.

Henry O'Hanian was a proud werewolf. He was a lean man of twenty eight years and had been a werewolf for twenty of those years. He was a tall man with a relatively handsome face and clear brown eyes. His clothes were ragged, but he never did care about them. Life as a werewolf under Fenrir Greyback was not easy. As soon as he was bitten at the tender age of eight, they had kidnapped and had been shaping him into a killing beast ever since. He knew some pleasures in his life though. Alice was his mate and she was rarely against a loud and active mating ritual. As soon as they were done with the outside patrol that night, they would run back into their room and rut until the bed broke under them.

He personally could account for the life of an auror. That had been his first kill in a battle. That had happened only 4 months ago, but he was still very much proud of himself. Fenrir himself had congratulated him and that was the highest honor that Henry could aspire to.

He saw a man coming towards the mansion where they stood. The man certainly did not belong here. No one was scheduled to arrive tonight and their Lord gave the order to kill every passer-by that saw the building proper. So that's what he did. He followed the protocols that were beaten into him. He let out a low howl to alert every other werewolf. He waited for a minute and when all five of them were outside and transformed, he led the charge towards the human. Alice joined him and ran just behind him. As he was running, he saw the man wave a shiny wand and take out a long sword from behind his back. Heh, let the poor human think that a simple sword can keep him, a werewolf, away. Twenty paces later, he noticed a strong smell in the air. He sensed that something was very amiss and quickly accelerated from his trot to a full out gallop towards the man. Alice did the same and barely managed to keep up with him. While they started running towards the man, the others noticed him sending a weak flaming spell towards them. That level of magic was laughable. Nothing of that calibre could ever best a single werewolf, never mind the five. So they didn't quicken their pace. The fire spell just missed Henry, when something unthinkable happened. The fire quickly grew as if it was burning the air around them. There was no time for a last thought to be issued by the brain.

The blast was deafening to Henry. It completely threw him off balance. He looked back and thankfully saw Alice beside him. Her fur was singed just like his, but she was alive and relatively well. He looked at the man who did this to his pack and growled. He wanted the man's life for his comrade's. He darted towards the wizard and made a long leap. He knew that Alice was not far behind him. He could already imagine his forelegs hitting the man straight in the chest and his teeth biting into the man's neck. His mass would make sure that his strike will succeed. No man can withstand that. He had done it numerous times and no sword has ever kept the victim safe.

The man darted forward to the ground at an incredible speed and came up with his sword slicing upward. Henry felt searing pain in his belly and fell to the ground in a pile. His intestines flapped out and there was a lot of blood leaking out. He was losing his consciousness fast, but he heard the loud whimper that Alice made before it became deathly quiet.

Harry quickly checked his surroundings. He was not impressed with the werewolves. They all died too easily. He barely missed the first couple of them with the blast, but the others died without ever making a trouble for him. They were lying in pieces around him. The stench was bad, but Harry forced bile back down. Now was definitely not the time to worry about such unimportant things as disgust.

He continued to approach the house. Everyone inside was on high alert now. There was not a soul in the nearby vicinity, who didn't hear the explosion. Streaks of light started coming from different windows in the building, but none of them were well aimed, so Harry didn't even cower. He kept alert all the same though. His team was already at the doors, where Death Eaters were trying to barricade the front. He quickly gave the signal and there were many simultaneous flashes of light which severed the five death eaters into pieces. This was not a mission to pick up prisoners.

There was a sharp bark of an order from the inside and all the spells stopped. A second later the same voice barked another order and all six of the window shooters launched spells at the same time. Harry had been coming closer the whole time and he had time to analyze rooms behind his shooters. He truly did not want to deal with three Avada Kedavra's and three strong blasting curses. He apparated into a room from which one of the Death Eaters had been shooting. He quickly sliced the wand wrist off the man and stunned him. A simple heart exploding hex finished the job.

The others must have moved into the building and secured some hallways already. The fighting was definitely not in the entrance hall. While Harry was cautiously walking there, the fighting stopped altogether. He got a message from Neville that the building was almost secured. Harry started briskly walking in the direction of the dungeons. He fully expected to find another couple of dark wizards in there.

The jade eyed wizard went down the stairs, into the cellar, which had a rich choice of wines and straight through to the dungeons. The point me and homenum Revelo spells told him all he needed to know. While walking, he got confirmation from his second in command that everything was secure. They were entrusting the hostage extraction to him. All valuables from the house would be taken.

The dungeons were actually dark and dank enough to be impressive. The Rosiers absolutely knew how to secure their prisoners. The tunnel that Harry walked through was at least a hundred paces long and there were seven active defences that the wizard had to disable. Three of those were lethal, but that did not surprise Harry one bit.

Harry entered the dimly lit chamber. He could see only see a boy of sixteen years of age looking at him like a mouse – frightened beyond words. Harry saw this and sighed. He quickly turned around and launched a wide arcing sound wave. There was a green mist coming out of a wand already. Both of the older wizards were thrown back against the mud wall. A fast series of transfigurations and a second later the mages were imprisoned within.

Harry turned back to the boy and just asked: "Where are they?" The boy was wearing the death eater robes after all. He was clearly no threat, but Harry did not let his guard down.

He pointed in the direction of the second door from the right. Harry quickly froze the boy in the position he was sitting in and moved past. The doorway was hastily warded, but that was taken care of quite quickly.

Hermione was in a world of pain. She heard tales that people sometimes felt so much pain that they wanted to die. She always left that idea to be in the books and only there. She never expected to have that desire herself. The DEs grabbed her, Ron and the kids and tortured them all ever since.

That day she felt Cruciatus for the first time. It was horrific and painful and everything the descriptions said a thousand times over. They all received dose after dose of the impossible pain and after an eternity the DEs said to pack up and let the boys back into their cages. She was left alone with the beasts.

That's when Hermione learned true horror. Being unable to do anything about male advances had her so afraid and panicked. She tried to bite the first two who wanted her mouth. She kicked and screamed. She cried for mercy. She sobbed while feeling incredible pain down below. Hermione did not want to remember the rest.

Then came probably the worst thing about torture - the wait. The witch could only sit and wait for the monsters to pick her or any of the boys up and drag them away. She desperately hoped that it would be another one they pick. Sometimes she got her wish, sometimes not. The guards always dragged them back in a heap. A seeming eternity passed this way with her being called twice. She cried herself to sleep when the she came back from the third session.

She woke up when she heard someone approaching. She wailed:

"Please, no! Not again. Don't you people have souls?"

The person answered with a surprisingly calming tone and with a voice that she didn't expect to hear - Harry's.

"Hermione, I'm taking you and the boys home. Everything will be fine."

Hermione could not believe how happy she was to hear that voice. And the face she saw completed the happiest moment in her most recent memory. Her cell bars vanished along with others. She stumbled to her feet and half walked half stumbled the few steps to him. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her temple.

That was not the time to bring up their previous animosity. She was a bespelled girl mind controlled into a brainless pawn. Harry already checked and deduced that the others were alive and asleep. He wandlessly levitated portkeys onto the bodies and silently activated them. The bodies vanished in a flash. They were left alone in the whole room.

Harry guided her out to the central room and left her. At first, she clung to him as if her life depended on it. She then let out an animalistic growl. Harry was very surprised at the change in attitude and looked at where she was glaring daggers. She was looking at the moustached man half submerged into the wall.

Harry did not have to figure it out for a long time. He took out a long knife from his pocket and put it in her hands. She looked at it numb, then she looked him in the eye. A silent conversation passed between them and harry released the knife. She got up and stalked toward the man. Harry left to check the other rooms. The vicious screaming of Hermione and the pitiful pleading of the man made the background music to Harry as he checked the other rooms. He found another six people in the dungeons. Most of them were starved and had symptoms of long torture. He saw three fully cut off and cauterized hands and feet cut off at the wrist and ankle respectively. These people also got a portkey to St Mungo's.

When Harry came back to the central room, he saw, that the man was dead and hermione was panting heavily in front of the suspended corpse. There were many lacerations on the man. His cheeks were cut open and his ears were popped. One ear had a clear hole in the middle from the knife. The body took minor beating comparatively, but the largest by far amount of cuts was on the genitalia of the man. The cloak was torn or cut open and the tunic the man had been wearing was cut right through. There was little left of the private part - it was stuffed down the man's throat.

"Hermione?" Harry asked cautiously. Hermione turned to look at him and he said firmly. "I don't want you to ever feel bad for what you've done here. He deserved it and more. I would have done it in your place."

She nodded wearily. The knife fell out of her now limp hands.

Harry hurried over and took her out. He ordered the team to blow up the place and get out of there.

They arrived at the med bay with Brianna giving the others a post mission check up. She still had three more to go when she excused herself and hurried over to Harry and Hermione.

"Brianna, she sufferred multiple Cruciatuses and her body had undergone major punishment." Harry said this with a very pointed look. Brianna got the message though. "Also she needs rest and some nutrition. Do whatever you can."

Brianna quickly nodded and got to work. She applied many diagnostic charms and healed some minor bruises with magic before she took out her potions. Phials and phials of potions went into Hermione over the next few minutes. A dreamless sleep potion finally finished the regimen.

Harry did not wait to see all of that and quickly apparated to the Zabini manor.


	20. Chapter 19 Endgame

Hermione groggily opened her eyes. Coming back to consciousness was definitely unpleasant for the girl. Oh, she lay in a nice bed; she felt silken sheets; and finally she was warm. However, she had the mother of all headaches in her head; her body was protesting all the abuse it suffered; her torso felt painful to move; her groin was still ringing with lingering pain from the dark wizards' vile appendages; the once sliced open skin on her back was reminding her of torturous hours with phantom pain.

The moans of the girl alerted Brianna that the bookworm had awoken. She quickly went over to silently cast her diagnostic spells on the girl. The tests showed good progress. Some nerve damage along the skin, some bruises still had to be treated. Overall, the girl was well on her way to complete recovery.

"Lie still, Hermione. You have some bruises still on your body. I healed most of it by now, but some things will take some time. You will be mobile in about five hours and you can walk out of here tomorrow morning. If you want a detailed description of what I've done for you, you can read it here. I pilfered this from Pomfrey's files. Make sure to read the notes on you before this day. I'm sure you will find them … enlightening." Brianna even opened the file for the girl, making the decision for her. She wanted the girl to see how much she had done for the girl and how much had been done to the bookworm previously.

As the girl read the files, she wallowed in her grief, still highly unstable from the previous day. She read the prescription of all potions she was administered, the effects observed and further regimen of potions advised. At one time Hermione could have understood that the professional reports filed about a patient have to be non-emotional. The doctors could not emotionally invest in the patients they have, nor form any emotional attachments to them. However, as she read the files she was astonished to see that her life was poisoned by the nurse. A few missives were included, supposedly from the venerated headmaster himself. That made her cry out in anguish, as the figure that she not only idolised, but loved like a grandfather, was ordering her to be poisoned.

The whole regimen of four potions she was acquainted with was devastating in its efficiency. Most of the potions were forbidden in the british isles, even if the owners would be charged with a fine only. The wit-dimming and loyalty potions were mixed in with a light infatuating potion in very specific dosages. The application of three spells on the mixture made them all stable together and look and taste like a menstrual potion. She shuddered. This was the majority of the potion she had been drinking to help with her wild menstrual mood swings. It did help, in a sense. It made her all the more loyal to Dumbledore and directed her moods to his service. But the price she paid was too harsh.

Dumbledore turned her intellect to serve his needs for a time, but eventually her intellect was a threat to his position. A keen mind had the ability to see past his lies. A keen mind had the ability to undermine his position. As soon as Voldemort had been reborn, Dumbledore knew that she would be too much of a risk to stay alive, so he added the poison to eliminate her. Dumbledore simply would not have enough time to mold her correctly, while his other duties called him with more urgent and important needs. The only other alternative left - get rid of her in the most quiet possible way.

The reason the potion mixture interacted so well is because it was mixed in with a tasteless poison. This particular brand of poisons was known for its double effect. It stabilised potions and also it introduced a virus into the bloodstream of the infected.

The virus will turn her white cells against her. The virus thankfully does not reproduce quickly, only about once a month. However, it is nourished by the body, while the number of infected white blood cells in her body would increase. The clash of leucocytes in her body would occur wherever the blood contained any number of the virus organisms. In the first two years the wizard or witch would not feel anything as their body defended itself from the rogue leucocytes, but then the virus population would start hitting a critical number and sections of blood would start to have overwhelming numbers of infected cells. Throughout the two years, the magician would notice an increase in disease frequency and susceptibility. After the grace period, the blood would turn against the host and attack all tissues across the body.

She had the virus in her system for the last year and two months. She was going to die a painful death in the next two years. She was done for. There was no treatment in the wizarding world for that last poison.

Grief wallowed in the girl. It reinforced itself as she sunk deeper and deeper into depression. Her parents would not get to see her grow up. Would not get to see her bring home any sort of diploma, certificate, degree, or prize.

As she sunk deeper still into herself, she felt the paper being ripped out of her hands, a few moments later she heard some shouting by a male voice, strangely familiar. A female voice, most likely the one who treated her, said something back in a calmer voice. Some more shouting sounded and then she heard her name.

"Hermione, Hermione, do you hear me? Look at me now." There was steel in Harry's voice as he looked her in the eye. "I'm sorry you had to go through that right now without any preparation. Now please don't flinch." Harry then quickly delved into her mind.

Unfortunately, for all of Hermione's knowledge and organization, her mind was a mess just like any other person's. Strands of memories floated around and unfinished thoughts were abound. The place was misty with an outside influence of a spell, potion or both affecting her mental facilities. Some memories were lost to the endless expanse of her mind, while others were buried under layers of magic. Significantly, someone else's magic was involved.

Harry recognised Dumbledore's signature when he analyzed the memories. He quickly broke through them all. Hermione would have to live with the knowledge that she was used by dumbledore more than once. She had been privy to a mission and been pulled along to use her mental facilities to decipher the magic surrounding a house. Another time she was used to unwittingly help the headmaster plan his next course of action regarding Harry himself. He used figurative language and broad terms, but Harry saw through them, when Hermione did not. Fortunately that was all the headmaster asked of her. Of course there were a few times when the headmaster would just rip information regarding Harry out of head, without preamble, and with an ensuing memory charm. She seemed to have insights into his character that can arise only after knowing him for a long time. She was Dumbledore's assured spy within Harry's ranks for such a long time, without Harry's or Hermione's assent.

Harry allowed Hermione to fall asleep under the sleeping spell while he went to fetch the elite of the Scorpion Army to attack Voldemort's last base of operations.

Harry called out to Blaise, who was just passing by: "Blaise, gather yourself, Xiana, Brianna, Fred, George, Bill, Ginny, Alastor, Tonks, Theo, Neville, Luna, Akima, Michael and Tiberius in the main compound within an hour. Arm your gear and bring all the weapons you have with yourself. We are going to end Voldemort today."

Blaise hurried off, talking to his mirror. The tension was now building in the air.

Harry went off in search of another smoothie and then started gearing up himself. The charging team would be at an advantage that day. They learned of a wonderful way to destroy wards. Bill came up with a counter ward that sucked the energy away from wards. Within a minute the wards around Rosier manor had fallen to this device, so Harry was positive that they would do the same about the wards around Riddle Manor in a slightly larger timescale.

Everyone on the team knew to stay back in their rooms for five minutes and review all the spells they would need during the mission. The knowledge became more instantaneous that way, and neither one of them needed a lecture on the danger of moments in battle when the fighter would be struck with indecision.

Three minutes before the hour was up, everyone gathered in the main compound. The table had Harry's magically drawn plans on it and several attack routes were drawn on them already.

"There is nothing I should really say now. We have trained so much. We gave such large parts of our lives to this. We are better trained than them now, we all know it. They ruled with fear since the beginning. We do not bend under it. Their leader made himself immortal, I will correct that. Their armies rocked against Britain, we crushed them. Let's finish it now."

AotSS

Hearing about the ransacking at the Rosier manor, Voldemort was furious, but held his anger in. The attacking team, no doubt led by the Scorpion Sorcerer himself was devastating to his forces. Of the last twenty nine people he had on his list, he had to scratch off twenty of those names. Some had been new recruits, some had been veterans. His vampire allies were supposed to come in a few weeks. He was desperate for them to join forces with him. He could not take control of the british isles if all he had to command were nine wizards of above average strength.

Assaulting the Azkaban fortress would be a hurdle that he could ill afford at the moment. Granted, he had a swarm of dementors at his beck and call, and he could take over dragons as well. However the wizards developed the ability to subdue both of those. Considering that the guards at the prison would be some of the best that the wizarding world had to offer, he was sure that the beasts would be subdued. His own intervention would turn the tide, since he knew how to apply his own powers so well, but still the equation was too balanced for him to undertake that lightly. Of course, the intervention of the blasted Scorpion Sorcerer and his forces was an almost assured fact. He did want to chance his powers against the sorcerer, but he did not want the fate of such an important mission to be at stake while they would battle. He needed the wizard otherwise occupied.

He called in the Dementors to his last base. Just over fifty demons answered his summons. He needed his remaining death eaters to be comfortable in the presence of the minor demons. Dementors, however, were locked in the set boundaries outside his home, but within the ward range. Between the hundred of them, they feasted on two souls taken from the nearby village of Little Hangleton. All the better, since he had access to two more inferi now.

While Voldemort was enchanting the still living bodies to be his pets, he remembered the ones he buried oh so many years ago in that cave. Perhaps, the inferi would allow him a better chance at overcoming the Azkaban guard. No, they would turn the almost balanced equation in his tide. That was the invaluable ace card he needed and he would be damned if he did not use it. Tom set errand for the others in the mansion to run and left the mansion within the next ten minutes.

Opening the cave door was problematic. Apparently after rebirth, his blood did not register as such anymore. He knew it was a muddy wine-red liquid now, nothing like the human blood he used to spill after battles in the times past. Oh well, he would have to change his enchantments later to answer to his new blood.

Entering the cave system, he was happy to see that his whole army was still floating underwater. Quickly checking the integrity of the potion protecting the Slytherin's locket, he roused the eternal guardians of this chamber. Every one of them filed to the exit, while Tom floated back in his little boat. As he gave the order to grab a long piece of rope, he was enchanting it to be a portkey to his manor. Tapping his wand on the rope, he and his recently acquiesced army vanished with a blue light.

Upon his return Voldemort saw his loyal death eaters pointing their wands at him. A salvo of spells was mid-flight and connected with his inferi. Three of them burst and more of them fell apart in pieces. Enraged, he put a shield around his inferi. He spent too much time making the army for them to be slaughtered by his incompetent followers. He still dare not attack his followers without a reason. The spells must have been already launched by the time the death eaters saw, much less recognised him.

Turning around, Voldemort was presented with a very unwelcome sight. There were figured in black form hugging cloaks working with several devices. The wards were giving off gong after gong inside the mansion. By every gong, the ward strength fell by another five percent.

Voldemort saw the characteristic outlook of the Scorpion Sorcerer. So the bastard came to battle Voldemort himself, then. Alright, he would give his all. There would be no playing around. He quickly organised his eight followers into a firing line. They already had the basic setup, but this time he made them get behind some damn cover, not wait for the wards to fall and become sitting ducks. Dementors were up in the air, giving the much needed backup.

It was rather unfortunate that Voldemort could not have brought the inferi earlier. He could have set them up as an ambush. Alas, the only thing he could do now was to spread them out, so they would not group together, giving the enemy easy bombarding targets.

The wards fell, and still not one of their curses touched the blasted invaders. They were either dodged with minimal movement or blocked with known and unknown shields. The enemies were proficient at using dark magics, Voldemort found. The sorcerer himself even blocked his four Avada Kedavra shots. The inferi surged past the ward line, attempting to rip the sorcerers to shreds. One man drew a sword, of all things, and started chopping up the closest ones, while the three others concentrated on Voldemort and his allies. The rest of the team engaged dementors and inferi near them.

Harry turned to Voldemort and activated his sleeping scorpions within voldemort's followers. Sadly, only one of them was present here, but that still made a difference.

Yaxley gurgled up blood as something inside of him rose and quickly started expanding. His chest felt a brief surge of pain, when he felt his heart being chopped off by something. A shock fell over him as the magical scorpion inside started to devour his biomass within a matter of seconds. His best friend, Amycus let out a scream when one of scorpion's pincers bit heavily into his leg. A second later the stinger borrowed into his ribcage, piercing his heart and filling it with venom. The next heartbeat spread the poison throughout the whole body. He never made another noise.

Five seconds into the battle, Voldemort saw his subordinates falling like pieces. The inferi still did not touch a single body. The dementors were trying to swerve around four patroni and massive flames, rarely succeeding. The sorcerer and one other apparated away for a moment, when Voldemort felt the premonition to move back. As he leapt back, he saw a massive obsidian spike rise out of the ground

A moment later another obsidian spear impaled Alecto through her nether region, rendering her into shock. As the spike continued to rise, impacting her upper vertebrae and shattering them. Her neck's skin almost ripped with the piece. No sound escaped her lips afterwards.

As another obsidian spear was rising out of the ground, its intended target leapt forward to charge the enemy with his physical brute force and skill. Yes, Fenrir and his werewolves made for a great attack force. They drew the enemy's attention and let the death eaters do their thing, not to mention their own deadliness as a pack. The last of the trinity of enemy wizards who was actively attacking them, tuned his his wand on the lone charging werewolf and unleashed a number of flaming spears from the wand, simultaneously. The werewolf was caught in his hind leg, making him stumble. A moment later he was awash with another set of spikes that pierced him throughout, and embedded into the ground beneath him.

Voldemort knew the spell from the ancient norse tomes he had pilfered from Borgin's. He used it in retaliation against the Scorpion Sorcerer fighting against him, but the wizard brought up the expected wall of stone. Many had underestimated the curse and raised metal walls, but the spears always burn through metal like it's not there. Stone is the most energy conserving method of stopping the spheres. However, stone is brittle, and exploding it in the wizard's face was a necessity.

As the spell left his wand, Voldemort heard a barely audible pop to his side and engaged the sorcerer again. The man definitely had skill, even if his speed could use some work. The accuracy displayed was infuriating, but nowhere better than Voldemort's. It was the power, however that was forcing voldemort back. His spells were being deflected. His vast knowledge of the dark arts was matched by his opponent. His spells, which were recognised as some of the strongest in human history, paled in comparison to what the enemy was putting out with his metallic wand.

Voldemort saw his most loyal follower struggle against her own opponent, a spry cloaked figure who was lugging heavy spells at her just as effectively as the Sorcerer was doing to himself.

Lugging spells at each other, the two major players on this field matched each other. Sorcerer had the superior strength, but Voldemort had better casting speed. Unfortunately, while Voldemort's casting speed was marginally better than the younger man's, the young wizard had a far better advantage in his spell strength. The blasts that the wizard took to lugging at Voldemort's feet made footwork very hazardous for him, since the craters formed were deep and falling into them would be bad.

That's when Voldemort heard the battle quieting down. He noticed that Bellatrix had her chest cavity wide open, his death eaters were decimated, the inferi lay in chopped pieces. The Dementors were within some sort of a bubble with fiendfyre chasing them, one of the few ways of destroying the ancient demons. Quickly he sent a penetrating curse at the bubble, to set the dementors free, but he knew it was a moot point. He was too occupied with the spry sorcerer to help them anymore. Dementors would be captured again within a few moments, he only hoped they did enough damage to give him time to overcome the threats.

Then, in his lapse of attention the wizard did something completely unexpected, he invaded Voldemort's mind. The pressure was not too crushing, even if it was done in a unique style. Voldemort felt pressure in every corner of his mind from an almost flooding mind probe. Quickly raising his dragons to sear through the sorcerer's attack, he fortified his castle with his own magic.

Multitasking a duel on wands and a duel in minds, was taxing both parties. Both were now slower, outwardly calmer, focusing only on each other and nothing else. Both now only launched a single curse at each other - the killing curse.

Voldemort was feeling reassured when he felt the dragon's flight brought them close to the encroaching tide of water. The enemies of fire and water would clash, going into a stalemate. While his opponent would be distracted, he would land that killing curse. To his utter shock, he found the dragons turning around just before they reached their anathema and flew at his mind, leading the crushing wave of water.

As soon as fire reached his walls, voldemort made a critical mistake, he stepped into one of the deep gouges he was surrounded by. As he fell quite ungracefully onto the floor, he noticed the wizard sending another heavy hitter to the site he would arrive in.

Apparating away, Voldemort was almost overcome by the stress of fighting a four pronged battle. However he was not known as the dark lord for nothing. He faced odds as bad as these and came out on top. He had faced three other dark lord wannabees and beat every one of them. One of those was his most loyal servant up until a minute ago. Some of Bellatrix's crimes would go forever unknown to history.

However apparating while being assaulted by your own mental defences as well as someone else's mental attack, all the time tracking a spell coming at you with a great speed was taxing the dark lord's mind too much. Even if apparating was second nature to him, the stress made him leave a crucial part of his body.

Now without his bottom body Voldemort appeared inside his bedchambers in his mansion. The pain had yet to come, but Voldemort knew that it was imminent. He quickly summoned summoned his legs to reverse the splinching.

Voldemort was glad that the legilimency attack by the sorcerer had been stopped, but the mental dragons were still hammering his defences. While the legs were in the process of flying to him, he started quickly targeting the dragons by his lesser defences. Then, unexpectedly, the attack by the wizard was renewed from inside his mind. The damn connection to Potter was wide open now and the wizard somehow took control of that in order to attack him. Even with full might of his Occlumency, Voldemort buckled under the pressure when the pain finally hit. The front gate of his mental defences caved in, letting in a dragon followed by the tidal wave.

The wizard was not there to learn his vast stores of knowledge. Voldemort felt the sorcerer gain his location from within his mind and apparate into the room. Behind the wizard, the bloodied pulp that was his legs also arrived. It seemed that the spell the wizard had sent to his falling location was an exploding hex.

In impotent rage and in great fear of the inevitable outcome he foresaw, Voldemort launched Killing curse after Killing curse at the man, feeding his rage to the magic. The stores of his knowledge were crumbling and Voldemort was still fighting a losing battle now within the confines of his mind. Three more dragons entered his mind to wreak havoc. The tidal wave was washing away his knowledge of magic.

Then one moment, he did the correct movement of the wand, but in the middle of incantation, his knowledge of how to cast the killing curse was swept away. Three minutes later, all the vast stores of Voldemort's magic were gone from inside his once frightening castle.

Harry looked at the vegetable of a man in front of him. Calling his friends to come to him, he quickly cauterised all the damage to Voldemort's body, burning it with a bit of a relish. Putting out the ensuing fires on the bed and hearing the soft pops of his friends' arrival, he presented them with half of a body of the wizard feared throughout all of Britain. The congratulations and bravo's spread quickly throughout the room. Not many of them yet knew what exactly happened to Voldemort, but they all trusted Harry to have disabled the man completely.

Harry would need Voldemort's body for its magical core. The spirit of Voldemort was still present inside and the thalamus in the brain was healthy as ever. The magical core would be used to make another Philosopher's Stone.

The notes Dumbledore left on the creation process of a Philosopher's Stone would be used by Harry whenever he would defeat a major wizard enemy to humanity. The reason for there being only one Philosopher's Stone before Dumbledore, was due to two factors.

First, the creation of the stone had the requirement to consume a magical core above a certain strength. The minimum strength of the magical core put the unfortunate wizard in the upper quarter of of the 99th percentile among wizards and witches.

Second, the moral implication of sacrificing another person for personal gain was not acceptable to Nicholas. In his time, Nicholas was a healer alchemist working during the reign of terror of their resident dark lord. After the man had been defeated, Nicholas was the head of the ward, which housed the stump of said dark lord. Their one lost both his legs and one of his hands in the fight that brought him down. Using the dark lord's magical core had been the brilliant innovation that allowed Nicholas to make the first inroad into the production of the first ever philosopher's stone.

The ancient man saw the danger in sharing the knowledge with others, since everyone was so very self centered. Albus had impressed Nicholas with his altruism, magical power and insightfulness concerning magic. Flamel then shared his most treasured secret with the man. As it turned out, Albus did not turn out to be the belligerent man he claimed to be, but at least Flamel's spirit passed on with the assurance that he made no critical mistake in trusting the young (to him) man.

However at that moment, Harry wanted to go back to his Lair and announce his victory. He had seen Neville strike down his personal demon in the face of Bellatrix, he had seen a castration hex heading for Voldemort when he was falling. Ginny finally overcame her own demon in Tom Marvolo result on a splinched part of the body had been quite bloody. His own explosive one had finished off the legs into a bloody pulp right before they were summoned away.

His forces would celebrate this victory and then move on to Magical Britain as a whole. He would be victorious, even if he could see many struggles ahead. The magical world would be his one day, he knew that. There was no other outcome that would satisfy him. If the muggle world would cooperate, he would move the world forward. The old views would be swept away by the younger generation. There might never be a utopia, but he damn sure would bring something close to it.

For Xiana and his Children.

Author's Note: I had a lot of fun writing this out. It took me two days to finish this, and I hope you guys are happy. I had to dig through a lot of material for this story, but eventually got it done.

Please tell me how I did. How did you like the point of view of the last battle? I hope I lived up to the name of the story. The ending seemed quite fitting to me. I don't like drawn out battles between the pro and antagonist, so I kept it quite short. Writing it from the point of view of the losing side was definitely fun. I did not give many injuries to the heroes or villains. The magic they were using was lethal only, so there was little chance of someone getting scratches or bruises. They weren't casting spells to launch one another across the hall. They were only aiming to kill, quickly and efficiently.

If you are so inclined, go check out my other story Travels of the Scorpion Sorcerer. It's a sequel to this one set in the Warcraft universe during the Third War.


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